French Study Finds Tumors and Organ Damage in Rats Fed Monsanto Corn

Most likely they'd just slap the GMO label on everything as there's always a chance that anything might have GMO in it. If everything has a GMO label on it, what's the point?
 
redrumloa said:
Welcome to the club. You will find Fluffy slightly concerned about GMO and me very concered. Everyone else here either doesn't care or think GMO is a good thing no matter what.
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Red - still trying to wrap my arms around your idea to switch to Libertarianism. What a Libertarian says here (or at least my Libertarian friends are saying) is the government is getting too involved. Businesses should do what they want to do. If someone believes GMOs give them cancer then they should take that evidence and take Monsanto to court to prove it. We as a society shouldn't be paying any costs here to ensure a clean food supply. If this food is undesireable people won't buy it and/or Monsanto will go out of business. You seem to not quite be onboard with this Libertarian mindset.
 
Libertarians are just "47%er" wannabies. They want to get by without paying taxes they just haven't figured out how yet.
 
My favorite Libertarian definition is someone that doesn't want to pay taxes but instead wants to use that money to smoke pot and buy prostitutes.
 
faethor said:
My favorite Libertarian definition is someone that doesn't want to pay taxes but instead wants to use that money to smoke pot and buy prostitutes.
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help stimulate the economy... keep them dopers and hookers off welfare by ensuring a stable market for their wares as it were...
 
Glaucus said:
Most likely they'd just slap the GMO label on everything as there's always a chance that anything might have GMO in it. If everything has a GMO label on it, what's the point?
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Then the organics will make a lot more money - and then the non GMO business will expand to meet the need.
As for keeping the GMOs out - all you'd have to do is find enough Rabbis to say it's not kosher. Think making things kosher is cheaper than not? Yet most of the big food companies are willing to pay to get kosher designation and that means a kosher supply chain. Once you have a label these things happen.
 
faethor said:
My favorite Libertarian definition is someone that doesn't want to pay taxes but instead wants to use that money to smoke pot and buy prostitutes.
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Your favourite definition is a strawman?
 
I think the ArsTechnica article alone punched some massive holes in that study. The first red flag, alarm bell or popped flare was when the "researchers" forced reporters to sign an agreement that they would not consult with other experts in the field before reporting. That's just not the scientific way.
 
Glaucus said:
I think the ArsTechnica article alone punched some massive holes in that study. The first red flag, alarm bell or popped flare was when the "researchers" forced reporters to sign an agreement that they would not consult with other experts in the field before reporting. That's just not the scientific way.
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eh, not really that untypical

you mght not think that
metalman said:
But it could more simply mean the GM maize and the herbicide had no measured effect, and that is why the dose made no difference. "They show that old rats get tumours and die," says Mark Tester of the University of Adelaide, Australia. "That is all that can be concluded."
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you need to try harder...

mark tester

Professor of Plant Physiology, University of Adelaide and the Australian Centre for Plant Functional Genomics

kinda funny... its gonna boil down to a "wash", whichever way you lean will determine the "quality of the science" for each of us... i know i dont believe the industry funded stuff personally and im seeing a good deal of the dissenters on the grant payroll...



hmm.. he has a dissenting opinion... imagine that...

"We were not one bit surprised to find that the agribusiness giant Cargill, the world’s largest agricultural business enterprise, and foundations like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which have deep ties to agricultural chemical and biotechnology corporations like Monsanto, have donated millions to Stanford’s Freeman Spogli Institute, where some of the scientists who published this study are affiliates and fellows," said Charlotte Vallaeys, Food and Farm Policy Director at the Cornucopia Institute, a non-profit organic farm policy organization.
On September 3, Stanford’s Freeman Spogli Institute, released the research, garnishing widespread press coverage from corporate news outlets such as the New York Times,Associated Press, and CBS News. As the New York Times reported, the study "concluded that fruits and vegetables labeled organic were, on average, no more nutritious than their conventional counterparts, which tend to be far less expensive."
However, as Cornucopia points out, a deeper examination of the actual research reveals "glaring errors, both in understanding the important and complex differences between organic and conventional foods and in the researchers’ flawed choice of research methods."
Environmental health advocates such as the Environmental Working Group and Mark Kastelof Cornucopia have been quick to point out the wealth of research ignored in the Stanford report, which reveals the obvious risks involved in producing and consuming non-organics; however, Stanford's spin was quickly and widely accepted by journalists without fact-checking and was rushed to the pages of major news outlets.

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/09/13-5

this disagreement will be ongoing... like asbestos and tobacco im sure with same typical ending... millions harmed or killed, no one held accountable...
 
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This does not pertain to the GMOs specifically but is indicative of what passes for "science" when large amounts of money are on the line.

I did everything a doctor is supposed to do. I read all the papers, I critically appraised them, I understood them, I discussed them with the patient and we made a decision together, based on the evidence. In the published data, reboxetine was a safe and effective drug. In reality, it was no better than a sugar pill and, worse, it does more harm than good. As a doctor, I did something that, on the balance of all the evidence, harmed my patient, simply because unflattering data was left unpublished.
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At least drugs ARE tested, even if they are tested with as much bias as the companies that produce them can muster. At least the really lethal ones are kept off the market. GMO crops have no requirement for any testing whatsoever.
 
faethor said:
GMO Opponents are the left-wing equivalent of anti-Climatologists
Interesting read.
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One side claims to be science based and the other side claims criticism is anti-science. In both cases the side with the most money says that there is nothing to worry about. The drug companies also don't tell you when their drugs are dangerous - because any science that says they are dangerous is not "good" science - until they can't deny it any more.

This French study is not the first study to find harm. It may be "discredited" in the way the valid Lancet study of excess deaths was "discredited" i.e. by saying it was - but the Lancet study remains a good study. This one may or may not be but it is also not the only one. However, the GMO producers have never had to prove them safe.

Now, there are many other reasons to criticize GMOs including that their yields are not particularly impressive and have been falling over time perhaps due to the fact that those engineered to resist herbicides have lead to soil damage from increased use of herbicides and to some highly resistant weed strains that are moving in.

Those crops with built in insecticides are losing effectiveness because these "science" based companies apparently believe in creation or have simply forgotten the science of evolution. Insects have short life spans and prolific reproduction. They are adapting to the new crops but we are not. If there is human damage from these crops we will be living with it long after the insects have the problem licked.

The technology of engineering crops is neat but humans are generally not smart enough to foresee the consequences therefore we should test and test and roll out new strains in small amounts and strategically but that is not the way big business works and big business does not worry about future bad effects, only profit now. If a company actually does do enough damage to people that it needs to defend itself in court it can either do what Exxon did and defend itself until all the victims die (Exxon still has not compensated victims for the Valdez spill despite court rulings against it) or it can go bust, part out all it's "intellectual property" to a "new" company and everything carries on as before.

However, if they would just allow labeling then they could let the "infallible logic of the market" handle this. However, the market is only "infallible" if it means they win - otherwise it's "socialism".
 
Fluffy, tossing out this particular piece of research doesn't mean that we must now accept what Monsanto says. I think when you view this research on it's own merits all indicators point to it being junk. Of course no one is saying that means GMOs are safe and it certainly doesn't mean that we should not research this any further.

Personally, I think anti-GMOs should distance themselves from this type of bad research because it actually discredits their entire cause. The curious thing is, why does an anti-GMO scientist feel the need to cheat so badly to come up with the results that he wants? To sell books? To sell a documentary? Most likely. Not the first time a scientist has done that sort of thing. Not sure why you want to help him get rich over this crap. I'd expect you to be the first to poopoo all over that sort of thing.
 
Interestingly the soybean GMOs appear to be more drought resistent than non-GMO soybeans. The organic soybean farmer this year stands to make more losses per acre due to the drought. .. At least according to one Farm Report I heard on the radio a couple of days ago.
 
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