Anyone heard this on genetic engineering of corn/soy?

[Ringer]

 

Good thing nobody said that, then.

 

 

 

Nobody here said that specific sentence, but it is widely said and it was hinted at. You have specifically said that there hasn't been much study on the effects of ingestion of bt GMOs, but if you look at the list I gave there are ~20 studies that do just that. So 1/10 of the studies that only make up less than 1/8 of the studies I have a list of study what was claimed to have been understudied.

 

[edit]

There may be more in there, but I only did a quick search of the titles alone. If bt wasn't in the title it was excluded from the count.[/edit]

Edited December 11, 2013 by Ringer

[overtone]

 

 

The scientists may have been involved in tweaking the design

They added various toxins (such as asbestos, menthol, combustion agents, etc), the science behind the breeding for higher nicotine and all the advances in addiction, the sophistication and targeting of the marketing, the manufacturing and packaging technology, and so forth.

 

And they often smoked them, bought them for their friends, defended their safety as expert witnesses in court, etc etc etc.

 

The takehome is: You can't depend on the scientists creating these GMOs to protect even their children from even obvious dangers. We have enough history of corporate paid science to establish that firmly and without the slightest doubt - without public, published, independently funded, uncoercible, large scale and long term research, you cannot place confidence in even positive results - let alone an absence of results.

 

 

"And yes, as noted repeatedly now and central to this matter -> there have been no carefully controlled trials <-. Remember that when the urge to demand evidence from such trials strikes you as you read my posts"

 

Close enough for most people I think

Far enough out of context, a context established specifically by you and part of an exchange with you directly, to support an accusation of deliberate deception - you are lying, there, John. Your posts include not only simplistic and mentally underclocking misconceptions, but deliberate attempts to deceive.

Should passersby doubt, here's some of the context:

"Bt pesticides (they are a family of related chemicals each adapted to a particular pest or type of pest) are generally as benign a pesticide as we know of, but their effects on such things as human intestinal flora under long term steady dosage, pregnancy and other such conditions, etc, have not been studied"

Guess again.

Since they have been used for a long time and no effects have shown up we know that, at worst, they don't have much effect on, for exapmple, pregnant women.

There has been no carefully controlled trial, but the practical truth is that we know they don't do much damage.

Of course, this may reflect that fat that pregnant women don't generally eat much raw cotton.

 

 

 

You have specifically said that there hasn't been much study on the effects of ingestion of bt GMOs, but if you look at the list I gave there are ~20 studies that do just that.

1) No, there aren't. You need to look at the studies themselves, not just keywords.

 

2) So? You can have a whole pile of studies into, say, the allergenic effects of Bt when ingested, which was the big worry before somebody noticed the digestive environment, and still not have much research into ingested Bt. You can find a pile of studies too short term, phylogenetically distant, and narrowly focused in circumstance, to support any conclusion of safety in the general human diet (Monsanto's 90 rat feeding trial for EU approval of glyphosate resistant GMOs maybe the most famous example) and you will have there no study at all.

 

They still don't know with confidence if they have an adequate list of the major possible effects of Bt complex ingestion, the subjects they need to research - new factors keep popping up.

 

3) Some of those articles linked (a lot of them are not primary research papers) support my argument - the very first one, for example. Those would be included among the evidence for risk and hazard in the current deployments of GMOs.

[John Cuthber]

 

- you are lying, there, John. Your posts include not only simplistic and mentally underclocking misconceptions, but deliberate attempts to deceive.

 

Got any evidence for that defamation?

(and, I remind you that I'm not the only one who contested your assertion that " nobody said that")

[CharonY]

 

 

No, you need to simply read my posts. They are largely simple, declarative sentences

 

I was giving you the benefit of doubt. Thanks for the clarification, though.

 

 

 

My claim is that few if any of the large scale studies replicate the smaller worrisome ones. The European peer-reviewed and respectably published study of 200 rats, divvied up into combinations (including controls) fed for two years on various regimens of glyphosate resistant rat chow, was recently withdrawn under hard public pressure for vague reasons, most of them handwaving at the idea that too few rats were involved for conclusive significance - but the obvious followup (one that would have made such politically suspect withdrawal unnecessary for their purpose), replication using more rats, remains unaccomplished. People are simply referring to Monsanto's "large scale" study that was the basis for EU approval of its seeds - but that one was only a 90 day feeding trial of a couple of groups.

 

Funny thing is that I followed the study somewhat (Seralini paper). You should know that retractions are not based on public pressure but generally from the research community (or authors themselves). While it is true that Monsanto lobbied against the paper, a move that I personally find despicable, actual scientists did the crucial evaluation.

 

What you define as handwaving was a serious discussion on the methodology. I can easily point out one of many issues which is the famous use of 200 rats. If all of them had been used as a single population that would have been interesting, but instead the comparisons were done in smaller subsets, i.e. groups of ten each. For long-term analyses the short lifespan of rats have to be taken into account, especially with studies that involve carcinogenic actions (which are not part of the design but became part of the conclusion). For example, they only had one control group of ten males and ten females, of which 30 and 20% (i.e. 2 and 3) died spontaneously. So from the get-go this is a study with a tiny population size comparison (far from the large well-done study that you may have in mind). This is just one of several issues (other notable ones are lack of food intake data, for example). Note that obviously absence of an effect alone does not confirm with absolute certitude the safety of a product.

At the same time it does not raise alarm if not indicated by further studies. Also as opposed to what you may thing, orthogonal lines of evidence tend to be better suited in finding and confirming rare effects. If blowing up the sample size and keeping everything the same, the effects tend to diminish rather than getting emphasized (I am getting bored at repeating myself at this point).

 

And, as Ringer demonstrated, there are many more studies and ignoring them to conform to ones own bias is non-scientific and entirely counter-productive. At this point we move from the realm of science to that of ideology and I can safely say that this is the wrong place for it. Also I could point out further studies with Bt ingestion (due to biocontrol rather than GMO, but if it is in the body it is in the body), but hey, since there is no research being done on them I must be imagining papers.

[Ringer]

Have you honestly went through the research? This paper that was on the list studied long term exposure of the exact type of modification you say doesn't have long term studies:

Kılıç A,Akay MT 2008 A three generation study with genetically modified Bt corn in rats: Biochemical and histopathological investigation Food and Chemical Toxicology

 

They only found minor differences in two organs, and considering the amount of things tested it's not surprising that some differences would be shown by chance alone.

 

And

 

Trabalza-Marinucci M,Brandi G,Rondini C,Avellini L,Giammarini C,Costarelli S,Acuti G,Orlandi C,Filippini G,Chiaradia E,Malatesta M,Crotti S,Antonini C,Amagliani G,Manuali E,Mastrogiacomo AR,Moscati L,Naceur Haouet M,Gaiti A,Magnani M 2008 A three-year longitudinal study on the effects of a diet containing genetically modified Bt176 maize on the health status and performance of sheep Livestock Science

 

Haryu Y,Taguchi Y,Itakura E,Mikami O,Miura K,Saeki T,Nakajima Y 2009 Longterm Biosafety Assessment of A Genetically Modified (GM) Plant: The Genetically Modified (GM) Insect-Resistant Bt11 Corn Does Not Affect the Performance of Multi-Generations or Life Span of Mice The Open Plant Science Journal

 

Buzoianu SG,Walsh MC,Rea MC,Cassidy JP,Ross RP,Gardiner GE,Lawlor PG 2012 Effect of feeding genetically modified Bt MON810 maize to ∼40-day-old pigs for 110 days on growth and health indicators Animal: An International Journal of Animal Bioscience

 

Buzoianu SG,Walsh MC,Rea MC,O'Sullivan O,Crispie F,Cotter PD,Ross RP,Gardiner GE,Lawlor PG 2012 The effect of feeding Bt MON810 maize to pigs for 110 days on intestinal microbiota PLoS ONE

 

Etc

Edited December 12, 2013 by Ringer

[overtone]

Have you honestly went through the research? This paper that was on the list studied long term exposure of the exact type of modification you say doesn't have long term studies:

And Inow's strawman detector is going to make him deaf.

 

What you are looking for, in response to my posting above (not John's deceptions or your own paraphrases, my posting) is a comprehensive (or even adequate, anything beyond "few") body of long term research studies on the effects of Bt-resistance (or, and better and, glysphosate resistance) complex ingestion on humans, in particular the microbial intestinal flora, and involving all the major code complexes marketed or proposed and the modified crops humans ingest, and the major demographic groups of humans at risk (children and pregnant women, for starters). The closest you have there is two 16 week feeding studies on pigs - which is good news and actually progress; as I noted above the matter has come under investigation recently (with Bt anyway) - many years after related hazards in glysphosate resistance complexes were overlooked while most of American agriculture converted, and labeling was prevented (making field studies even more difficult).

 

The fact that the studies there - the 16 week pig feedings published last year - are actually progress, new results, and not redundant replicates of something done ten years ago and expanded into adequacy (multigenerational with the pigs, at the very least) long since - is clear proof of my contentions here. I was hoping somebody would wade into one of your piles and extract such evidence, and I thank you.

 

Also, kudos for actually looking at the rat study, to see if it supported claims of safety. You noted that statistically significant problems were found in two organs (and you might also note some indications of trouble elsewhere not rising to significance). Dismissal of such findings as statistical artifacts would be better based on consideration of mechanism (lack of), though - and inferring safety in humans from a rat study like that one is tricky enough, without evidence of not-so-safe-as-one-hoped showing up in the data.

 

 

" - you are lying, there, John. Your posts include not only simplistic and mentally underclocking misconceptions, but deliberate attempts to deceive."

 

Got any evidence for that defamation?

I posted more than sufficient evidence right there - quoted from the post you were trying to Fox. Your persistent misreadings, misrepresentations, and strawman "paraphrases" have crossed a line, and you need to pull back a bit from such efforts.

 

Try Ringer's technique - vague allusions to what some unnamed person has allegedly posted, and a link claimed to contradict them with no argument. That way anyone responding to the attempted effect of what amounts to gossip or innuendo has to reconstruct the intent and the argument themselves, and can be disparaged and attacked for those efforts rather than answered for the issue.

Edited December 12, 2013 by overtone

[Ringer]

And Inow's strawman detector is going to make him deaf.

 

What you are looking for, in response to my posting above (not John's deceptions or your own paraphrases, my posting) is a comprehensive (or even adequate, anything beyond "few") body of long term research studies on the effects of Bt-resistance (or, and better and, glysphosate resistance) complex ingestion on humans, in particular the microbial intestinal flora, and involving all the major code complexes marketed or proposed and the modified crops humans ingest, and the major demographic groups of humans at risk (children and pregnant women, for starters). The closest you have there is two 16 week feeding studies on pigs - which is good news and actually progress; as I noted above the matter has come under investigation recently (with Bt anyway) - many years after related hazards in glysphosate resistance complexes were overlooked while most of American agriculture converted, and labeling was prevented (making field studies even more difficult).

 

 

You realize this is special pleading right? Have all the ingredients in your food been tested to this degree? How about nutritional supplements? Does your distaste for those follow the same reasoning?

[overtone]

 

 

You realize this is special pleading right?

1) No, it isn't. It's no more than one would expect from any such conversion of a continent's food supply and agricultural output.

2) So what if it were? GMos are especially new, especially unknown, and especially dangerous. They need more, not less, checking out - and that's going to take a long time and cost a lot of money.

 

 

 

Have all the ingredients in your food been tested to this degree?

They've all been tested better than any GMO has been - and even with that, things like BPA and trans fats have sneaked in.

 

More to the point, if I want to avoid the odd chems I can - they're listed on the label, and they don't spread themselves into my food.

[John Cuthber]

" So what if it were? GMos are especially new, especially unknown, and especially dangerous."

So, that's a couple of cases of defamation, some special pleading, and begging the question.

 

Then there's some flat out falsehood

"They've all been tested better than any GMO has been"

Can you show me the pre-release safety testing they did on, for example, peas?

 

"More to the point, if I want to avoid the odd chems I can - they're listed on the label, and they don't spread themselves into my food."

 

Do you understand that your food is made of chemicals?

Most of the naturally occurring ones have not been identified, far less have they been studied and tested.

So, exactly how do you plan to avoid chemicals in food?

[overtone]

The only thing odd about having Monsanto's apologists posting like the last, is that it's the GMO critics and questioners and red-flaggers who are referred to as irrational, emotional, illogical, unscientific, etc.

 

Otherwise, same old same old. I believe I've seen a TV spot with some corporation trying to frame the issue of them putting bad shit in people's food for profit as a matter of food being "made out of chemicals".

 

"Without chemicals, life itself would be impossible" was the punch line, IIRC. But to have the standards of integrity adopted by corporate US marketing and PR firms adopted on a scientific discussion forum? That would be not so good, maybe.

 

 

 

So, exactly how do you plan to avoid chemicals in food?

I just plan to refer to all such posting by you, from now on, as dishonest - every time you pull that kind of shit here with reference to my posts, you are lying.

[John Cuthber]

 

The only thing odd about having Monsanto's apologists posting like the last, is that it's the GMO critics and questioners and red-flaggers who are referred to as irrational, emotional, illogical, unscientific, etc.

 

Otherwise, same old same old. I believe I've seen a TV spot with some corporation trying to frame the issue of them putting bad shit in people's food for profit as a matter of food being "made out of chemicals".

 

"Without chemicals, life itself would be impossible" was the punch line, IIRC. But to have the standards of integrity adopted by corporate US marketing and PR firms adopted on a scientific discussion forum? That would be not so good, maybe.

 

 

 

I just plan to refer to all such posting by you, from now on, as dishonest - every time you pull that kind of shit here with reference to my posts, you are lying.

 

So, no evidence, no valid argument, just name calling and rude words.

Plainly rational, unemotional, logical, and scientific then.

[Endy0816]

I just see it as being far riskier to keep dousing our fields in assorted -cides. More damaging to the environment and likely to impact human health in my mind.

 

Ultimately I think it'll become a non-issue. Countries, groups or even individuals are going to release deliberately modified organisms into the wild. Considering our lackluster record in dealing with natural invasive species and the amount of economic damage possible it is a near certainty. What is going to matter more is how these different traits fair in evolutionary terms.

[overtone]

 

 

I just see it as being far riskier to keep dousing our fields in assorted -cides. More damaging to the environment and likely to impact human health in my mind.

No such choice is offered. Not only do GMOs depend on the full chemical gamut of industrial agriculture aside from the specific benefits of the engineering, but the two major -cides being engineered in are two of the most benign -cides: as their effectiveness is destroyed by this kind of irresponsible abuse the replacements will in most cases be worse in their environmental, medical, and economic effects.

[hypervalent_iodine]

 

The only thing odd about having Monsanto's apologists posting like the last, is that it's the GMO critics and questioners and red-flaggers who are referred to as irrational, emotional, illogical, unscientific, etc.

 

Otherwise, same old same old. I believe I've seen a TV spot with some corporation trying to frame the issue of them putting bad shit in people's food for profit as a matter of food being "made out of chemicals".

 

"Without chemicals, life itself would be impossible" was the punch line, IIRC. But to have the standards of integrity adopted by corporate US marketing and PR firms adopted on a scientific discussion forum? That would be not so good, maybe.

 

 

 

I just plan to refer to all such posting by you, from now on, as dishonest - every time you pull that kind of shit here with reference to my posts, you are lying.

 

 

!

Moderator Note

overtone, please try and keep personal comments out of it. Stick to arguing the facts and if you believe something to be untrue, you should be able to demonstrate it properly instead of simply calling someone a liar. And try and keep the profanity to a minimum, if you could.

[Ringer]

1) No, it isn't. It's no more than one would expect from any such conversion of a continent's food supply and agricultural output.

So can you show me the studies for, say, nutritional or dietary supplements? Or how about pre-test on new types of fertilizers, or the different genes in the different animals we eat, etc.

 

2) So what if it were? GMos are especially new, especially unknown, and especially dangerous. They need more, not less, checking out - and that's going to take a long time and cost a lot of money.

So besides special pleading you add an argument from ignorance/non-sequitor? They are unknown, therefore they are dangerous? I don't see the logic.

 

Not to say there shouldn't be more testing, there should always be more testing. But assuming danger when it has yet to be significantly shown by multiple studies doesn't make sense.

 

 

They've all been tested better than any GMO has been - and even with that, things like BPA and trans fats have sneaked in.

Show me these studies then.

 

More to the point, if I want to avoid the odd chems I can - they're listed on the label, and they don't spread themselves into my food.

No, many things on the label are under 'trade names' so you don't really know what they are and many times, take the recent supplement study, things are in there that are not on the label.

[Endy0816]

No such choice is offered. Not only do GMOs depend on the full chemical gamut of industrial agriculture aside from the specific benefits of the engineering, but the two major -cides being engineered in are two of the most benign -cides: as their effectiveness is destroyed by this kind of irresponsible abuse the replacements will in most cases be worse in their environmental, medical, and economic effects.

 

Well, we're going to require -cide rotation either way to prevent resistance from occurring. That much is common sense. Could just rotate modified organisms in the same fashion.

 

I'd really rather we focus on the rest of field and bring that on board. Guardian insects, precision pollinators, improved soil microbes, far more lasting options I think.

[overtone]

 

 

Well, we're going to require -cide rotation either way to prevent resistance from occurring.

No, as the long term use of Bt and glysphosate has demonstrated, moderated spot and topical usage can be managed to avoid breeding resistance into the targets.

Also: there appear to be no good alternatives right now to "rotate" with.

Also: breeding resistance under the kinds of pressure GMOs impose has a track record - in bacteria, mosquitos, and such - of creating generalizable resistance, so that "rotating" is not a simple matter - the differences have to be the right kind.

 

 

- - Could just rotate modified organisms in the same fashion. - -

If we had anything to rotate in, maybe. We don't.

 

 

 

I'd really rather we focus on the rest of field and bring that on board. Guardian insects, precision pollinators, improved soil microbes, far more lasting options I think.

Arranging things so that the great potential of this engineering is realized would of course be a good thing to do. Meanwhile - - - -

[overtone]

Since the offer of actual discussion has not been picked up, this no longer interrupts:

 

overtone, please try and keep personal comments out of it. Stick to arguing the facts and if you believe something to be untrue, you should be able to demonstrate it properly instead of simply calling someone a liar.

I let it slide for two pages, then quoted two examples of the specific deceptions, referred to them directly, argued from them explicitly, and posted that right in front of your face.

 

If you are going to allow such posting as I was responding to, you have to permit direct response. Treating such posts as honest discussion prevents honest discussion.

 

There is no way, for example, to respond to Ringer's last post (toward the end of the previous page) by arguing any "facts" other than the facts of the nature of his post. There isn't any other "scientific" matter at issue - the complete irresponsibility and intellectual fatuity of these "arguments" is the central matter, and the risks of promulgating GMOs under such auspices my central observation. But I can't say that?

[John Cuthber]

I posted this

"

 

Ringer, on 11 Dec 2013 - 5:14 PM, said:

Saying there haven't been many studies done on GMOs is an outright falsehood.

overtone, on 11 Dec 2013 - 7:00 PM, said:

Good thing nobody said that, then.

overtone, on 10 Dec 2013 - 5:13 PM, said:

And yes, as noted repeatedly now and central to this matter -> there have been no carefully controlled trials <-. Remember that when the urge to demand evidence from such trials strikes you as you read my posts.

Close enough for most people I think"

and you called me a liar for quoting your own words back at you; and my opinion of them.

Now you come back and claim that you posted the facts.

So, once again, if you think you have evidence that I lied, post it or apologise.

Edited December 19, 2013 by John Cuthber

[overtone]

and you called me a liar for quoting your own words back at you; and my opinion of them.

Now you come back and claim that you posted the facts.

Look, either the moderator takes a look at what this guy is up to, with the quotes in context etc, and warns him about such behavior,

or I am allowed to respond to what he is doing, directly as I did and obviously should here,

or the thread is abandoned for honest discussion. If you back what Ringer and Cuthber are doing here, and warn off even the attempt to call it, you give up on discussing the OP or the larger issue it introduces in any reality based manner.

This, btw, illustrates one of, if not the, central problems with current GMOs - they are being sold under false pretenses and deceptive rhetoric with a bad agenda, significant risks and all but inevitable harms are incurred thereby, sane policy is actively fought and prevented, and their great potential for benefits could well be one of the casualties (the places that ban them completely on principle made to look prudent and foresighted, say) if this is corruption is not curbed somehow.

Edited December 19, 2013 by overtone

[John Cuthber]

So, once again, if you think you have evidence that I lied, post it or apologise.

Show that I said something which I knew not to be true.

Edited December 19, 2013 by John Cuthber

[overtone]

So, once again, if you think you have evidence that I lied, post it or apologise.

Show that I said something which I knew not to be true.

I did, explicitly labeled as such. Repeated demands for the already provided, under the repeated (and repeatedly corrected) misrepresentation that they haven't been, is one of the rhetorical techniques I feel justified in confronting directly without being warned off - but we'll see.

Edited December 19, 2013 by overtone

[John Cuthber]

Look, whatever you may think, I know that I didn't lie.

 

So I know that you cannot prove that I did.

That's why I'm asking you to show what you think is evidence, so that I can see if I can explain what error you have made. So. once again,

Show that I said something which I knew not to be true.

[overtone]

 

 

That's why I'm asking you to show what you think is evidence, so that I can see if I can explain what error you have made

 

 

 

I did, explicitly labeled as such. Repeated demands for the already provided, under the repeated (and repeatedly corrected) misrepresentation that they haven't been, is one of the rhetorical techniques I feel justified in confronting directly without being warned off - but we'll see.

 

This ain't rocket science. I don't want this "explained", I want it either stopped, or direct response allowed.

[Phi for All]

So, once again, if you think you have evidence that I lied, post it or apologise.

Show that I said something which I knew not to be true.

This ain't rocket science. I don't want this "explained", I want it either stopped, or direct response allowed.

 

!

Moderator Note

We're still trying to get other staff members to weigh in on this, during a busy holiday season. I will say that I've seen some fairly deceptive and fallacious statements from just about everyone involved. I see many strawmen in this thread, mostly trying to upgrade implications to declarations of fact.

 

Right now, this seems like a semantics issue. Lying is deceptive, but I guess not all deception is a lie. It's true that pregnant women don't eat much raw cotton, but that's a fallacious and deceptive claim in context of this discussion, at least in my opinion. I'm mentioning that one because it seems to be at the heart of a few reported posts, not as the sole offender in this situation.

 

We need to see all claims backed up, but even more I think we need everyone to step back and assess what's really being discussed here. There's way too much sniping going on, with smart and clever posters who know a good veiled insult when they see they can get away with one. You're all too savvy to play this blame game. I see no adamant pro- or anti-GMO stances as much as cautious optimism warring with cautious pessimism.

 

This has been a very informative thread, but it has great huge swaths of uninteresting, nitpicky personal baggage that's keeping it from being great. Please help the rest of us understand why this issue is important by removing ego from the equation.