So what if GMO corn causes cancer

Monsanto and Dupont...third on your list. You might also want to add Cargill and ADM, one of which has been convicted of price fixing and other things.

Nestle is not a primary producer, they buy from the primary producers. Even so, the company isn't squeeky clean, remember the melamine in milk scandal in China?

None of this, even listing the companies involved, shows that long term studies on the affects of GMO food have been done. They haven't. The stuff hasn't been in the marketplace long enough. It is being safety tested on the American public. Europe and Japan have managed to keep GMOs out of the human food supply, but not the animal food supply. We don't know what eating gene modified food that has processed through an animal will do.

We do know that organic farmers are losing one of the most effective insect controls they have due to GMO crops. The insect pests are becoming resistant to Bt, mainly due to it's incorporation into GMO crops. We are also developing "superweeds" resistant to RoundUp, and are having cross pollination issues with non-GMO crops. Corn is wind pollinated, so cross pollination is always a possibility. Some people, not environmental alarmists, are implicating bee colony collapse to GMO crops. If you really want to imagine a life changing event for the human world, try to imagine a world without honey bees.

GMO crops, in my opinion, have entered the food stream with too little scrutiny. Unfortunately, it is too late to put that genie back in the bottle; we will be finding the full effects of this in the coming decades.
 
So lets do this again. Who is this Monsanto ?

Well some of the owners.

% of Shares Held by All Insider and 5% Owners:
0%​
% of Shares Held by Institutional & Mutual Fund Owners:
85%​
% of Float Held by Institutional & Mutual Fund Owners:
85%​
Number of Institutions Holding Shares:
880​

Top Institutional Holders
Holder​
Shares​
% Out​
Value*​
Reported​
VANGUARD GROUP, INC. (THE)
26,773,011​
5.02​
2,216,269,850​
Jun 29, 2012​
FMR LLC
18,320,968​
3.44​
1,516,609,731​
Jun 29, 2012​
BlackRock Institutional Trust Company, N.A.
14,887,705​
2.79​
1,232,404,219​
Jun 29, 2012​
PRICE (T.ROWE) ASSOCIATES INC
13,389,395​
2.51​
1,108,374,118​
Jun 29, 2012​
PRIMECAP MANAGEMENT COMPANY
12,443,623​
2.33​
1,030,083,111​
Jun 29, 2012​
DAVIS SELECTED ADVISERS, LP
11,393,821​
2.14​
943,180,502​
Jun 29, 2012​
JENNISON ASSOCIATES LLC
11,101,412​
2.08​
918,974,885​
Jun 29, 2012​
WINSLOW CAPITAL MANAGEMENT
10,455,585​
1.96​
865,513,326​
Jun 29, 2012​
MARSICO CAPITAL MANAGEMENT, LLC
8,094,837​
1.52​
670,090,606​
Jun 29, 2012​
MANNING & NAPIER ADVISORS INC
8,078,526​
1.52​
668,740,382​
Jun 29, 2012​

Top Mutual Fund Holders
Holder​
Shares​
% Out​
Value*​
Reported
FIDELITY GROWTH COMPANY FUND​
6,834,978​
1.28​
527,660,301​
May 30, 2012
DAVIS NEW YORK VENTURE FUND​
6,600,196​
1.24​
502,802,931​
Apr 29, 2012
VANGUARD TOTAL STOCK MARKET INDEX FUND​
6,542,455​
1.23​
521,826,210​
Mar 30, 2012
VANGUARD/PRIMECAP FUND​
5,912,460​
1.11​
471,577,809​
Mar 30, 2012
Market Vectors ETF Tr-Agribusiness ETF​
5,758,813​
1.08​
444,580,363​
May 30, 2012
Mainstay Large Cap Growth Fund​
5,140,600​
0.96​
396,854,320​
May 30, 2012
VANGUARD 500 INDEX FUND​
4,782,923​
0.90​
381,485,938​
Mar 30, 2012
VANGUARD INSTITUTIONAL INDEX FUND-INSTITUTIONAL INDEX FD​
4,643,672​
0.87​
370,379,278​
Mar 30, 2012
SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust​
4,377,502​
0.82​
337,943,154​
May 30, 2012
COLLEGE RETIREMENT EQUITIES FUND-STOCK ACCOUNT​
3,756,588​
0.70​
299,625,458​
Mar 30, 2012​




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Number of actual holders of funds (teachers with the pensions, holders of 401ks) who get to vote as stockholders... 0%.

Fund managers get to vote for the stock. Who are the fund managers, they are the same sort of people who told us mortgage bundling was a good idea.

This still does not address the issue of lack of research on GMO products. It doesn't address the fact that chemical companies now control large amounts of the food supply. It doesn't address the fact that while many people with retirement plans and 401Ks invest in these companies, they have no real say in how they are run. They hold the shares through management companies, and most of these funds are bundled with many other things. Very few people actually read the prospectuses that come out every year from their 401ks.

There is also the wonderful idea of socially responsible investing. Remember the 1980s, when people were divesting in South Africa?

The fact of the matter on GMO crops is there isn't a huge volume of long term research on the effects of GMO food. The possibilities of hormonal changes, gene jumping, carcinogens, allergens, insect and weed resistance, etc have not been fully explored.

Who owns the companies, who invests in the companies, etc does not change that.
 
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Mom's Folly...if this device could open up the emoticon section, you'd be getting a big ol' thumbs up. But, you'll have to settle for boring old text.
 
Number of actual holders of funds (teachers with the pensions, holders of 401ks) who get to vote as stockholders... 0%.

Fund managers get to vote for the stock. Who are the fund managers, they are the same sort of people who told us mortgage bundling was a good idea.

This still does not address the issue of lack of research on GMO products. It doesn't address the fact that chemical companies now control large amounts of the food supply. It doesn't address the fact that while many people with retirement plans and 401Ks invest in these companies, they have no real say in how they are run. They hold the shares through management companies, and most of these funds are bundled with many other things. Very few people actually read the prospectuses that come out every year from their 401ks.

There is also the wonderful idea of socially responsible investing. Remember the 1980s, when people were divesting in South Africa?

The fact of the matter on GMO crops is there isn't a huge volume of long term research on the effects of GMO food. The possibilities of hormonal changes, gene jumping, carcinogens, allergens, insect and weed resistance, etc have not been fully explored.

Who owns the companies, who invests in the companies, etc does not change that.
You're right, most people have no clue about inveting and it is a shame. I think the bigger issue is most people really don't care as long as they are making a profit.
 
Who says it causes cancer? Just wondering where the info came from and how reliable it is..

The full documentary is over an hour long. I highly recommend it. It is very enlightening. It is (temporarily, I believe) being shown online for free. Their website is HERE.

Here is the link to the full length documentary:

Here is a 10 minute remix of the show.
 
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Sadly, GM foods have been changed from 'Lets give this plant a higher drought tolerance so it can grow in more arid countries and help over there' to 'let make this crop resistant to our own special brand of weedkillers, and make everyone else pay for the privilege of planting this crop!' *coughMonsantocough*
Gm foods are a really interesting topic, and the second you start going through scientific journals you find different opinions straight away- half the journals are convinced they're kill us, and the other half are equally as convinced that they won't. My real issue with GM crops is not the crops themselves (we expose ourselves to crazy levels of dangerous/'unnatural' chemicals and the like the second we step out the door but we seem to cope fine) but with the few megacompanies that have swept in, scooped up bucketloads of interesting genes and then patented the lot of them. Monsanto is a perfect example of this!
If the majority of GM foods were projects like golden rice, instead of projects like the Roundup Ready crop, there would be FAR more people in favour of GM foods. We could have been making crops that could help fight malnutrition and starvation, instead most of the main GM crop genes are just genes for resistance to various herbicides and pesticides.
At the end of the day, we've been 'genetically modifying' our food for thousands of years now with selective breeding, its just that now we have an even greater degree of control over this selection process
 
Technology has raced far beyond the legal ramifications of those technologies. Patenting genes is only one of the many Gordian knots of legal, moral and other complications that have come with biotechnology. I think the initial patent on a gene was a precedent making mistake. Those genes are novel, but they are not "invented", "developed" or "unique". They came from humans, plants and animals, and they have existed in their present forms for a long time. This is one of the reasons companies like GMO crops; the insertion of foreign genes into a plant or animal does make that "new" plant or animal patentable.

In vitro fertilization has brought on a whole lot of legal issues as well; many of which are still evolving. Who owns fertilized embryos? Who gets do decide what happens to unused embryos? Are they the company's property, the parent's property, or even property at all? Do embryos of deceased parents have rights to the parent's estates, pensions, etc? Some of the issues are already being decided in the courts. Unfortunately, the courts are not where these issues should be resolved. They should be dealt with on a legislative level.

Newer technologies on the horizon are going to bring even more questions. Freezing eggs has just made the news this week, and other recent news has included stem cells from cadavers, mice egg cells developed from skin cells, and other technologies. Human cloning, fusing eggs or sperm to create embryos, and other types of parthenogenesis can't be far behind.

Even getting a genetic test can cause all kinds of problems, and unforeseen complications. Recently, in the news, was a report of a young child forced to go to a different school because he has the genes for cerebral palsy, but not the disease. Can a medical provider compel genetic testing? Can they act on the results of a genetic test? Can a person be denied alcohol due to a predisposition towards alcoholism?

I'm sure anyone can extrapolate on some of these...gay couple and children, medical coverage for genetically predisposed positions, not being allowed to do certain things because of your genetic makeup, GMO foods completely unregulated in the market place, tailored drugs and who controls them. The lists are nearly endless. The potential for both good and bad outcomes are infinite.

Most of our lawmakers are uniformed about science, and many are very squeamish about the issues and implications of some of the technologies. If a "Personhood" law is passed, what are the implications for current reproductive technology? Would it outlaw in vitro fertilization? How about disposal of "non-viable" or "unusable" embryos? Would you be allowed to remove cells from a bastocyst for genetic testing?


The people in charge of making the laws governing these choices are woefully inadequate. Members of the House Science Committee think that there are magic girl parts that can repel rape sperm and that the theory of evolution is a lie "straight from the pit of hell". They are ignorant of the scientific method, and technology. They have little idea of the far ranging implications and effects of biotechnology. They have little interest in moving beyond the instructions and interests of their corporate sponsors or religious leaders. It is a brave new world out there, and the people we have elected to help us govern the choices are not doing a very good job of it. We have thrown it on the courts and can only hope for the best
 

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