GMO irony

[marktoo]

If GMO's are so safe, why are they banned Australia, Japan, the EU and nearly 60 other countries around the world?

Cause they're all dumb, dumb, stupid heads, who are foolish enough to believe the lies of the evil organic overlords.

GMOs may not be able to feed the world but they can substantially reduce the world population while making biotech company shareholders rich beyond their wildest dreams. Sounds like a win-win! ;o)

 

[Mini Meat]

Watch the movie Genetic Roulette if you have any questions about why people think GMOs are concerning. As to the original post, GMOs have nothing to do with watermelon and apples (unless you're talking about the new apple they are trying to have approved that doesn't turn brown as it sits out in the open air after being sliced). Watermelon, apples, and many of our crops have been selectively bred over thousands of years to be more desirable and no one is complaining about that process.
The concern with GMOs is that you are inserting a gene (haphazardly placed- using a gene gun) from a species that the organism would never have bred with. The vast majority of GMOs are about pest and weed resistance, not improving flavor, vitamin content. They are bred for one of two traits usually. 1.Resistance to the herbicide Round Up (which has been shown to be carcinogenic in European studies. Round up ready crops are doused in Round up in much higher quantities than would otherwise be possible. and 2.To produce their own pesticide, Bt. Bt is naturally produced by a bacteria, and the gene from that bacteria is inserted in the plant. When an insect eats the leaf with Bt in it, its stomach basically explodes and it dies. Bt does not directly affect the stomach of mammals, but it does negatively impact the bacteria that line the entire digestive system and forms the front line of our immune system. When we destroy these bacteria, we destroy the biofilm of the gut lining and we make room for unfriendly, more aggressive bacteria to move in. They create toxins that make us sick and also create conditions that make it more likely for undigested proteins to make their way through the small intestine into the bloodstream. The white blood cells recognize that this protein is foreign to the body, and creates allergies against it, so food allergies are born. These are just a couple reasons people are concerned about GMOs. It isn't antiscientific. It is not simply fear of technology. I have a degree in biology and genetics. The scientists for the FDA originally suggested they NOT be approved, but the head of the FDA overrode this decision. Interestingly, he used to work for Monsanto.

Exactly right!

GMO's do not make corn grow 10 ears per stalk or provide better nutrition as opposed to natural crops. They only serve to boost the sales of their makers primary products. Also the fact that these big Corps are suing farmers who save seeds from their non GMO crops that have been contaminated by GMO genetic pollution, causing much harm to many independent farmers, is simply evil.

 

[Cindy in PA]

There again just label them & the argument can cease. Many studies are done by the same people that own the patents or their paid cronies. Doesn't matter if the studies are correct, less than 25 years time is not enough to see the full effect. I see the effect on the land here. Weeds take over with the round up ready crap. There are nuts on both sides, but I just want to be able to make a choice. I know anything with corn or soy in it on the store shelves contain GMOs, so I buy very little of the crap. Everything has corn & soy & it is not nutritious. Soy oil was a waste product til they got the idea to market it as a food additive. Our food system sucks, period.

Edited for spelling

 

[Mini Meat]

Labeling is not happening because then the consumer would be informed and could "vote with their dollars".

Historically soy was not used as food, even for animals, unless it was fermented. Miso is one example.

For those who are interested this program is catching on fast http://www.nongmoproject.org/

 

[marktoo]

Monsanto is only responsible for selling as much it's shh..tuff possible, not the safety of its products. Safety is the FDA bag! Now, who's in charge of the FDA again?

 

[chickchick56]

The gig money people...ahhhhhh Monsanto executives

 

[triplepurpose]

It's not just the effects of the genetic engineering alterations themselves that are an issue, but the whole system surrounding many of these crops themselves. I am skeptical of genetic engineering technology and think it should be approached with great care (which it usually isn't), but I'm not convinced those techniques are inherently evil.

But the system they are involved in is totally messed up. The way the patent laws are structured for example. The way oversight is lax or non-existent. The way profit and high yield are prioritized over public safety, nutritional quality, and sustainability. It doesn't have to be this way with GE crops--but it is!

The worst example is Round-Up Ready crops--some of the most widely grown non-OG crops in this country. Which have resulted in more use of the herbicide (glyphosate). So the weeds became more resistent. So farmers had to use MORE glyphosate. Round Up (glyphosate) is also used to "chemically dry" seed crops in the field (spraying shortly before harvest), making them easier to harvest mechanically.

(Glyphosate also sterilizes the soil, because it also kills all bacteria as well as plants. And dead soil exacerbates all your farming problems further, forcing you to rely entirely increasingly on chemical inputs to keep plants alive rather than the complex chemistry of the living soil.)

You would think that a lot of this chemical would be ending up in our food, which it is. But rather than putting a stop to this madness, the government recently increased the allowable amounts of glyphosate in food and feed crops instead. Thanks for the regulation, guys--glad you got our backs! (that's sarcasm, in case it didn't read... )

The limits are different for different types of crops, but I believe the limits allowed now are something like 30 ppm for cereal grains, for example. What does that mean? Well, 1 ppm is more than enough to cause health issues like hormone disruptions and chronic inflamation in animals (including humans), so you tell me. And BTW, the allowable limit in animals feeds is something like 400 ppm (yes, that's four hundred, not a typo)

That's just one reason organic is not "overrated." I could certainly give more reasons, but whole books have been written on the subject and I can't go there on a simple internet thread.

IMHO I honestly DON'T understand why people use these crops! Obviously it's NOT the only way to farm, when there are thousands of organic farmers making a fine living off the land, growing nutritionally sound food that makes people healthy and doesn't threaten public health (including their own health and the health of their families and employees), and doesn't compromise long term sustainability, but enhances it. I mean seriously, to say there's no other alternative to chemical farming is just absurd. Sure, transitioning to organic is sometimes hard (because you have to rebuild dead soil, transition to new practices, invest in new infrastructure in some case) but people do it all the time.

And speaking of which, isn't it also kind of telling that you never hear about people transitioning the OTHER direction, from OG to chemical or GE? Living proof that few in their right minds considers going back to chemicals once they know better...

I'm not saying people who farm with GE patented crops, synthetic fertilizer and chemical pesticides are stupid--not at all--most of them are of course smart, good people who think they are doing the right thing. They are also stuck in an exploitative system that doesn't really care about their welfare and wants to keep them there. And lot of them learned to farm that way and don't know any better, or are afraid to think beyond it, because they are sunk so deep into that system. I get it. And I don't judge them as people. But all the more reason to repeat: saying that they don't have better alternatives isn't fair to anybody--least of all them.

(edited for typos)

 

[lazy gardener]

Thank you 100 times over for taking the time out of a busy day to so very well state my thoughts on the matter, much more succinctly than I could do. It's so very sad that the public continues to bumble along with their heads buried in the sand.

 

[marktoo]

Thank you 100 times over for taking the time out of a busy day to so very well state my thoughts on the matter, much more succinctly than I could do.  It's so very sad that the public continues to bumble along with their heads buried in the sand.  

Pretty much covers it for me as well. Except my dismay at the number of ex biotech employees within the federal government including Hillary & Clarence Thomas.
Prepare for the long-winded rebuttal from the otherside.

 

[chickengeorgeto]

There's a lot of discussion and a lot of pseudoscience that goes around when discussing GMOs. Personally I always recommend the non-GMO feed at work... but that has more to do with the fact that those bags are 40lbs and the conventionals are 50 and I'm the one who has to load them.

Kidding aside... there's no evidence that GMOs can hurt us simply by eating them. There's nothing "foreign" in GMO items, it's just genes that have been moved around artificially. That said, I am somewhat anti-GMO, specifically towards variations like the Round-Up Ready sort. That stuff is pretty dang poisonous, for the environment and in large enough quantities for humans and animals, and I really don't find it to be a good idea to be spraying it in large amounts on food items, and modifying things to make them capable of standing up to that... ick. There's also the concern of GMO strains hybridizing with regular strains - sure, GMOs have lots of potential, but they're also still relatively new creations. It would be wise to keep them isolated from old strains for the time being, and even then - it's important to keep heritage varieties alive and pure.

That said, I'd say you're incorrect about us having "GMO" pets and flocks. Yes, they've been genetically modified, but not in a lab, which is what I'd call a "real" GMO, for the sake of this conversation. The difference being that one form of modification happens over many decades or centuries and is done through simple means, whereas one is new, high tech, and artificial... three words that some people tend to get scared of.

I find the hubbub about GMOs funny but tragic. For close to 100 years now plant scientist have manipulated plant DNA by bathing the seeds in "HARMLESS" (sic) Gama Ray emitting radioactive substances. As of this posting there are somewhere on the order of 3,500 food plant verities in your refrigerator and cupboard and a further 1,500 flowers and shrubs in your backyard that were derived from massive doses of radioactivity. As a further added attraction NONE of these gene manipulated food items are in any way inspected or tested for safety like every GMO plant variety is. And guess what? Every one of these "Franken" foods derived from radiation are sold to farmers, gardeners, and nursery men all over the world under the ORGA NIC label. It would be funny if it didn't prove the absolute stupidity of so many American as well as European consumers. I am open now to learning more about which camp in the GMO v ORGANIC conflict is the main decimators of pseudoscience. Someone help me out here.