GMO Feeds

[Cindy in PA]

I'm not sure what you're trying to say here.


Every single GMO crop that goes to market goes through extensive testing. They are tested for potential allergens. They are tested to see if their protein/amino acid profiles match the original plant. At this point, there is no evidence of harm from any GMO crop. No weird allergies, no people or animals getting sick - nothing. We've been using these things for decades now, and they're fine.

There are tens of thousands of thorough independent studies, and no evidence of harm - just a whole lot of conflation and misinformation from the giant marketing machine that is organic foods.


This is an article on the single most comprehensive feeding study ever done (probably on anything) on GMOs - it deals with HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS of animals - and there is no evidence of harm, at all:

http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/19-years-of-feeding-animals-gmo-shows-no-harm/


The problem here is that people generally create a story in their minds, and then go and try to find evidence to support that story, instead of looking at the evidence and deciding what the story is. When you've got cranks like the Foodbabe and "Dr." Oz out there, it's all people need to affirm their story, and then they stop looking. The scientific evidence here is prolific and clear - and there wouldn't be any arguments if people would stop trying to get their science from people who don't understand science at all.

Unfortunately we will all find out a few decades down the road. This stuff has been around for a really short time in the scheme of things. Many many so call scientific advancements have been proven not so great after a longer period of time. We've been human guinea pigs on many fronts, with inventors & the government reassuring us until they can't. Time will tell.

 

[CrazyTalk]

Unfortunately we will all find out a few decades down the road. This stuff has been around for a really short time in the scheme of things. Many many so call scientific advancements have been proven not so great after a longer period of time. We've been human guinea pigs on many fronts, with inventors & the government reassuring us until they can't. Time will tell.

We've had these things for decades.

The genetic changes made to a GMO organism are significantly smaller than the genetic changes made when you conventionally breed organisms. A GMO has somewhere between 3-10 base pairs changed - a conventionally bred organism has millions of base pairs changed.


You are significantly more likely to get ill from a new conventionally bred variety of vegetable than you are a GMO variety. The science of this isn't all that complicated. Not understanding the science doesn't make it unsettled, or controversial.

 

[Areolyn]

We've had these things for decades.

The genetic changes made to a GMO organism are significantly smaller than the genetic changes made when you conventionally breed organisms. A GMO has somewhere between 3-10 base pairs changed - a conventionally bred organism has millions of base pairs changed.


You are significantly more likely to get ill from a new conventionally bred variety of vegetable than you are a GMO variety. The science of this isn't all that complicated. Not understanding the science doesn't make it unsettled, or controversial.

Finally! I tried explaining this somewhat earlier but no one got it. I was unsuccessful in my attempt to put the genetics out there.

Just because the method of modification is different doesn't mean it's harmful either...It is way more easier to modify plants of today than it was long ago(when we used cross breeding and such...) I think. I'm not sure on that one so correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[pdirt]

Quote:
I think the core of the issue for a lot of folks is (because they don't understand the science, myself included), they tend to not trust it. I mean, if you leave two squash plants near each other, "nature will take its course" and produce a hybrid. But take one of those squash plants and use a multi-million/billion (I am assuming the tech is spendy) dollar machine to insert a desired gene into the plant to produce something new...do we (do scientists) really know what they are doing? And assuming they do, should they be doing it? I mean look at atomic energy...yes, scientists figured out how to unleash power by splitting atoms. But we nearly blew up the planet as a result (cold war). I'm all for progress, but hopefully we are not progressing faster than our politics and cultural maturity allows us to do.

Also, to me, the issue with GMO's is when pesticides are spliced into the organism and/or they are altered in a way to resist the effects of pesticides so more can be sprayed on them. The whole Monsanto thing. We shouldn't be spraying more pesticides onto our crops, but less.

Study suggesting kidney and liver damage in mice fed GMO corn:
http://www.theepochtimes.com/n3/1134271-how-gmo-foods-change-gut-bacteria/

 

[matt44644]

There was 150+ acres of Croplan 3899 grown next to my property and they sprayed twice.1st spray was the fertilizer second spray was at about 3 weeks and was a herbicide.
Where the corn stalks stop is my property

 

[CrazyTalk]

Study suggesting kidney and liver damage in mice fed GMO corn:
http://www.theepochtimes.com/n3/1134271-how-gmo-foods-change-gut-bacteria/

The study linked in the article is about mice being fed high levels of glyphosate, and the article is a perfect example of the problem with the anti-GMO brigade - a combination of conflating issues and just not caring about the truth.

It has nothing to do with GMOs.

Also, to me, the issue with GMO's is when pesticides are spliced into the organism and/or they are altered in a way to resist the effects of pesticides so more can be sprayed on them. The whole Monsanto thing. We shouldn't be spraying more pesticides onto our crops, but less./

GMO crops that deal with pesticide resistance need drastically less spraying - if you want less pesticides being used - GMOs are the best way to do that. I don't think people realize the absurd amount of pesticides that Organic farms use - because none of their pesticides are particularly well targeted or effective (but they're plenty toxic)

 

[Areolyn]

I think the core of the issue for a lot of folks is (because they don't understand the science, myself included), they tend to not trust it. I mean, if you leave two squash plants near each other, "nature will take its course" and produce a hybrid. But take one of those squash plants and use a multi-million/billion (I am assuming the tech is spendy) dollar machine to insert a desired gene into the plant to produce something new...do we (do scientists) really know what they are doing? And assuming they do, should they be doing it? I mean look at atomic energy...yes, scientists figured out how to unleash power by splitting atoms. But we nearly blew up the planet as a result (cold war). I'm all for progress, but hopefully we are not progressing faster than our politics and cultural maturity allows us to do.

Also, to me, the issue with GMO's is when pesticides are spliced into the organism and/or they are altered in a way to resist the effects of pesticides so more can be sprayed on them. The whole Monsanto thing. We shouldn't be spraying more pesticides onto our crops, but less.

Study suggesting kidney and liver damage in mice fed GMO corn:
http://www.theepochtimes.com/n3/1134271-how-gmo-foods-change-gut-bacteria/

The cold war did not almost blow the planet up. It would take thousands if not millions of bombs going off at the same time perfectly to even make a dent in destroying the world. I trust scienctists because they have studies and are willing to show the process. But let me ask you this: how can I trust an organic farmer if I see no tests and such? A silly argument to make but if someone can't trust a gmo crop that has scientific study behind it why can't I trust a crop of no study besides the articles of biased websites?

I do understand though that it would be desirable to spray less than more pesticides. And I do understand that people may not trust it because they don't understand it. But at that point they should at least try to educate themselves.

 

[dretd]

Quote: Hi Crazytalk. I know you are really into research and admonish folks to do research, so hopefully this will be easy for you. In the comments above, you state that people are significantly more likely to get ill from a new conventionally bred variety variety than a GMO variety. This a very bold statement of fact with implied studies to back it up. I am unaware of any such studies and would eagerly read them if you would be so kind as to post specific links.

I am also having trouble with your statement that a GMO has between 3 and 10 base pairs changed. This number seems low to me. Could you please provide the source for this information as I am unable to locate any information on the exact number of base pairs inserted into various crops. For instance, the description for the Roundup Ready Soybean is (http://www.webcitation.org/60hS1x2BS) :

"Glyphosate tolerant soybean variety produced by inserting a modified 5-enolpyruvylshikimate-3-phosphate synthase (EPSPS) encoding gene from the soil bacterium Agrobacterium tumefaciens. Expression of the CP4 EPSPS gene in the plasmid used for transformation was regulated by an enhanced 35S promoter (E35S) from cauliflower mosaic virus (CaMV), a chloroplast transit peptide (CTP4) coding sequence from Petunia hybrida, and a nopaline synthase (nos 3') transcriptional termination element from Agrobacterium tumefaciens."

According to this several genes are required in the final GMO soybean--the gene itself and then 2 other regulating genes that tell the cell to make the protein and yet another to tell it to stop. I am having trouble seeing logically how all of this genetic material can be coded in 3-10 base pairs.

I even dug out what I believe to be the original Patent granted to Monsanto in the '90's "Method of Agrobacterium-mediated transformation of cultured soybean cells US 5563055 A"
: https://www.google.com/patents/US55...X&ei=f4XvVK6ZOsrloAT_wICoAQ&ved=0CBwQ6AEwADgU and did not see any reference to the length of base pairs there. So I am stumped where the 3-10 base pairs came from.

I would ask you to please avoid a broad 'just google it' statement as I personally find that unhelpful. Links to specific source material is preferred and if the source material is subscription-based go ahead and provide the link as I am a member of some science organizations like AAAS and may be able to access the information via login.

Thanks!

 

[CrazyTalk]

Dredt, I'll dig some more for you - I think my numbers might be a bit low, but are in the right area.

RoundUp-Ready soy is a 5th or 6th generation product at this point - there are several changes (as you noted) - when I say it's only a handful of base pairs being changed, I meant per change (sorry that wasn't clear). This is an article on the enzyme change that makes crops resistant to glyphosate - it's a change to a single enzyme. There's a 72 base pair swap that happens, but large chunks of those 72 base pairs are being replaced with like (It's easier to make one 72 base pair swap than 4 or 5 smaller ones, so they swap a chunk). That's still a miniscule change.

http://tpx.sagepub.com/content/30/1/117.full.pdf

This is an article from early in the process of developing Golden Rice - the change is a 22 base pair deletion - removing a stop codon and some junk DNA to restore the beta-carotene pathways in the actual rice grain (the pathway in the leaves and stem are fully functional to start)

http://www.goldenrice.org/PDFs/Ye_et_al_Science_2000.pdf


As to my claim of GMO foods being safer - there's a very simple basis to that: For a GMO crop to make it to market, it needs to be tested. It gets tested for every known food based allergen, and it's protein profile gets tested - any new unaccounted for proteins are a failure. There are gene asseys, protien profiles, followed by animal/livestock feed trials, lab trials, etc. The testing is extensive.

None of this testing happens with conventional breeding - I can cross two nightshades (and have millions of base pair swaps/changes/insertions/deletions), and bring them to market without any sort of testing for new protiens (despite the fact that many nightshades have the pathways for some really nasty things, just turned off)- there are literally dozens of examples of these sort of things getting to market and making large amounts of people sick. Potatoes (Lenape) with levels of solanine so high that they made people sick in minutes (and killed several) made it to market in the 70s, Celery with psoralens so high that they caused contact dermatitis in the 90s, Our food history is littered with these sort of things.

Any sort of gene change can produce something toxic - it's not likely, but it can happen. A change made by man is no more likely to produce toxins than any other change. The big difference here is that those changes actually get checked in GMO crops. They don't in conventional breeding.


If you want to learn about something ridiculous - look up mutagenic breeding. You can wash a seed in mutagenic chemicals, or irradiate it to cause mutations, and sell the resulting crop as organic, with almost no testing. Is that really less dangerous than scientists carefully planning a genetic change, doing gene assays to make sure it happened correctly, and then testing the output? There's a reason there hasn't been a single negative allergy or health reaction to any GMO crops - they're tested to an absurd level.