GMO'd Vegetable seeds?

This rat study was discussed earlier in a GMO thread & most of it was hog wash.

CG, do you think all our food should be labeled? Do you support labeling for GMO foods?

CG,

I admire your tenacity in continuing the fight for common sense and truth. I was not getting anywhere so i finally gave up.

What they do not seem to realize is, if the GMO killed the rats the Lawyers would jump in and win millions of dollars for the dead rats estate, as well as for all the people that had worried themselves to death.

Ernie

It was attacked by people with strong ties to the GMO industry or who were otherwise not unbiased to begin with. Read the article by another member of the French Academy, whose specialty is statistics and who found rejection of Séralin's results to be appalling and his study to be well-conducted and reliable:

http://sustainablepulse.com/2013/03/03/french-academy-of-sciences-the-gmo-scandal/#.UUniKlteuEs

They were feeding the rats straight round up. Amount was stupid. Comparison, a human would have to drink gallons per day! How dumb.
Car anti-freeze set out in pans is the best rat killer around, but people don't go around drinking anti-freeze.

Do I think food should be labeled, yes, I would hate to open a can to see what is in it.
In the USA if it's on the shelf for sale, it is most likely fit to eat.
Food poisoning don't happen until something is cooked or served.
Haven't heard of anybody dying from food except for food poisoning.

I'm just shaking my head. I cannot believe you honestly believe that, CG. After all the information out there about additives in foods and what they do to people. Just because thousands don't keel over all at once, doesn't mean people aren't dying a slow death by the way food is produced now, especially processed food. Next time you go to the store, sit in the parking lot for a while and watch the people going and coming from that store's doors. It's obvious there's a huge problem. If you can tell the food they're eating is killing them from across the parking lot, by the way they and their children look, then how is the food not affecting them? People have become so disconnected with what's happening and there's no love for people anymore, or they'd care. Just because a corporation is successful and has nice shiny ads all over tv and print, doesn't mean they're doing all good for people. They are in it for the bucks. They tell themselves they're giving the public what they want. The public, from the age of a toddler, is told by the media what to want. The whole system is haywire. Every family needs to grow their own healthy food, even if they have to do it on the rooftop or a laundry room, and quit taking this government sactioned poison into their bodies. I can't believe that anyone thinks "food poisoning don't happen until something is cooked or served". What about pesticides on raw vegetables? What about food from other countries that is grown in human dung? If people are dying from their food, CG, you'll never hear about it, because something else will get the blame. The whole system is messed up.

I'm sorry, but I worked at one time in a plant that processed old laying hens into canned chicken. Also some beef & pork. The food safety was unbelievable. Inspectors everywhere. No line was started until inspector made sure all was right. The chicken line was tore down & sanitized at noon hour. Then same at end of day. Now they run 24 hour day. This place is 8 miles from my house. If you go to Sam's Club & buy canned chicken, it is canned here.

Are you talking about all the overweight people coming & going to the stores. I don't know of any other food aliment you could see from your car.

I don't believe there are enough rooftops to grow food for everybody.
Your town sits in the middle of many irrigated fields. Put them on roof tops?

There was a 'rat study' in France that used rats bred to develop cancer..[.so they could try treatments on them] to 'prove' that GMOs gave cancers. It can take a long time to drain that scam out of the blogs.

Indy, that's the study I referred to above. The rats used in that study were the same strain that Monsanto also used in their tests to show no harm; they are a standard test animal. Those objecting to the study were associated with or GMO producers or had other clear conflicts through one avenue or another. The link I included in my last post was an article about scientists decrying the rejection of the study's findings, because they found it to be sound research. They also found the procedure through which the study was criticized to be flawed.

This is a VERY lively discussion.

Glad to have the opportunity to read through all the varying opinions. This would not be possible if ya'll weren't being civil in the discussion, since admins would shut you down.

Thank you, for being civil. I've learned a lot!

Hugs!

i took the time to read every word of the Biased Criticism by the dissident member of the French Academy, of the French Academy Committe's Criticism of the Frenchman Analyst's Criticism of the Biased study provided by the GMO proponents of the GM Maize.

This link was posted as proof and verification by GG that GMO is a Killer.

And, I was hoping to find a dead body, or at least an autopsy report, or some shred of proof that would lend a little bit of credence to the purported dangers of GMOs. But all i found was Hypotheses, Beliefs, Guesses, Opinions, and Speculations. So, since i did not find any evidence at all that either GMO is Dangerous or that GMO is the Savior of Civilization, I am still of the opinion that neither side has a leg to stand on until someone dies and their Autopsy report proves conclulsively that GMO Done it.

Ernie

They kill roughly 1¼ people per day in Minnesota on the highways. These are documented deaths. We should not drive cars as they are killers.
No documented deaths from GMO's, but they should be outlawed.
THINK ABOUT IT!

CG
Hospitals are killing lots of people now, too, by allowing patients to become infected with drug resistant virus and bacteria. So the world is dangerous, but still some people seem to focus on very minor problems, and elevate those problems far above where they should be in the greater scheme of things.

I do not think the anti GMO protest will become too big, as GMO is providing so many benefits to so many people, but sometimes mistaken beliefs like the Spotted Owl fiasco that destroyed the Northwest Logging Industry and countless families, small businesses, etc., did tremendous economic damage before it was discovered a more aggressive bird was causing the problem, and not the logging Industry at all. So, there is a danger, however small, that unwarranted protest movements can become larger problems.

Keep up the good work.

Ernie

NancyNurse,

I just happened to notice the post that you opened this thread with. You were concerned about the problems that Roundup might possibly be posing to the fertility or growability of the soil that had been treated with Roundup.

Please look at the post #9451450, dated 3,16,2013, to see how little effect 30 years of Roundup has had on the trees pictured.

This thread has segued into a heated discussion of GMOs. I knew there was a misconception about Roundup, but i did not recall who had expressed that.

Ernie

I just stumbled on a statement by Dr. Deno about glycophosphate.

I agree with him that is is a LOT safer than many things, but I didn't think it broke down THAT fast in soil. I thought it bound tightly to soil, then broke down slowly. Of course, it breaks down "slowly" compared to some things, but "fast" compared to traditional persistent herbicides.

Just like it's much less toxic and persistent than arsenic, but worse than pyrethrins (if it is more toxic to humans and more persistent than pyrethrins).

Dr Deno, "Seed Germination, Theory And Practice" 2nd Edition, p. 61

How can I naturalize wild flowers?

The highway department in
Pennsylvania and private groups have taken to broadcasting seed of flowers in
patches in the median strip in our four lane divided highways and in the plots enclosed
in clover leaf intersections. This has been most successful, but it should be
remembered that it only works if the area is first sprayed with an herbicide of the
glycophosphate type such as Roundup. The seeds can be planted in a day or two
after the spraying.' using this technique we maintain sizable beds of Dianthus
barbatus, Delphinium grandiflorum, and Primula japonica with minimum effort. The
glycophosphate type of,herbicide is rapidly degraded in soils to glycine and
phosphates which are plant nutrients and are both beneficial to plants. The above
point is emphasized because there is much promotional literature appearing that
infers that one can just throw the wildflower seed anywhere. This simply will not work
if there is a thick sod of grass or a thick growth of other plants.

Many growers are frightened of chemicals. It is true that some older herbicides
such as simazine and arsenicals should not be used because they leave residues in
the soil that are detrimental to life. It is also true that herbicides of the Paraquat type
are dangerously toxic to humans. However, glycophosphate herbicides such as
Roundup and its congeners quickly degrade in soils to glycine and phosphates.

Glycine is a natural amino acid and a component of every protein in your body and
phosphates are a plant nutrient. No harmful residues are left, and seeds can be
planted minutes after spraying. These glycophosphate herbicides are the basis for notillage
farming which is the way that much corn is raised today as well as many other
crops.

Avoiding the use of Roundup because it is a chemical reminds the of a bumper
sticker that I saw on a pick up truck on a desolate back road in the outback of
Wyoming. if you think education is costly, try-ignorance.




Persistent URLs for Dr. Deno's book
"Seed Germination, Theory And Practice"
and supplements:

http://hdl.handle.net/10113/41278 (1993)
http://hdl.handle.net/10113/41279 (1996)
http://hdl.handle.net/10113/41277 (1998)

P.S. I usually admire Dr. Deno a lot, but I was not impressed with his brief dump on bottom heat for seedlings.

Now my spell-checker translated a mis-typed "" as "sycophantically"!

Rick, I will try to keep your and Rich's names straight tonight. I hope the article you quote, which confirms what i learned about Roundup using it for 15 years and observing it for an additional 15 years, will soothe some of the fears and apprehensions many people seem to have about it.

This combining of our different knowledge bases reminds me of how well it worked during the years i worked closely with the University of Idaho, both with their Vet School, and their Tree Nursery programs. We would combine what they knew from teaching with what i had learned from Business and Farming, and we learned a lot from each other. So, reading what you and Rich Ogden have written here, from your higher education viewpoint, has fit in well with my field and life observations.

The Vet school is certainly off topic here, but the artificial insemination of sheep is a very expensive and difficult subject to teach without actual sheep to work with so a large group of their Professors and Vet Students would come up and practice using the semen i was importing fron New Zealand. And that cooperation, between Universities and Agriculture or Business is very valuable, and i refer to it here to illustrate how knowledge works best when it is flowing both ways.

Ernie

Rich, and CG,

While you are discussing the merits of different ways to kill rats, you might enjoy one of the problems described in the GMO Critique link posted by GG that i read today.

One of the disputes concerned the ages of the rats that were used in the test of GMOs. It seems the Pro group believed the test should have been conducted using mature rats, but the Con group that wanted to prove a danger with the GMO wanted to use younger rats.

Apparently rats only live two years, and the Con group wanted make sure the rats would die from the the GMO before they died of old age, and the Pro group wanted to use the old rats so they would die of old age before the GMO killed them.

>> We would combine what they knew from teaching with what i had learned from Business and Farming,

Bingo. That's what I was trying to get at in my "bottom heat" rant. Ivory-tower academics are probably usually exactly right about what they saw happen in controlled experiments, but it isn't always relevant to practical applications.

"In theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice, they ain't."

>> We would combine ...

That's the only way to make progress. Intellectual hybrid vigor.

Paraphrasing J. Michael Straczynski of Babylon 5 fame:

"Controlled experiments and practical experience are the shoes on your feet.
You can travel further with both than you can with just one."

>> the Con group wanted make sure the rats would die from the the GMO before they died of old age, and the Pro group wanted to use the old rats so they would die of old age before the GMO killed them.

Thanks for giving a practical example of what I was trying to say about "you have to know the prior bias of a team to evaluate their results". I'm not randomly calling all scientists liars.

Both your subconscious and your conscious experimental design that cause you to select in good faith (or otherwise) the conditions that allow you to DETECT the thing you are trying to detect. You may have spent years and hundreds of thousands of dollars just to get ANY measurable results. Yes, after the MEASURABLE results become possible, you should spend more years and thousands to get measurable results about realistic, practical scenarios (if that's possible).

Snap quiz: you could go to your boss and beg for twice the funding, and spend another few years, to try to DISprove the relevance and importance of the margin al results you finally managed to publish.

If you succeed, and show that your first paper was stupid, you may never get a grant again, kill your career and be a laughingstock to your peers. How hard do you beg for that extra funding? Or do you defend your results in yor own min d, and welcome the partisans who think you are a laboratory GOD for getting the results you already got.

Denial is not just a river in Egypt. It makes the world go 'round, and scientists are people, too.

Of course, when the first paper was funded by Monsanto and they liked the PRO results, how easy will it be to get funding from them to show that your paper proved nothing practical?

Or if your funding came from a government agency whose existence depends on protecting people from perceived (and/or real) threats, are THEY likely to approve the second grant request titled :I think I was wrong, your rules are stupid, and there really WAS no evidence of danger"?

The biases probably come as much fr5om the fun ding process and peer review as by individual bias.

Science doesn't work by "THIS study proves THAT". It works over time by the combined weight of evidence finally overwhelming THAT school of belief and showing that THIS school of belief was on a rightER path (and should get funding to purge THEIR mistakes).

And when BIG discoveries are made, like quantum mechanics and relativity, you just have to wait for the stubborn and inflexible members of the old school (like department chairmen and heads of funding organizations) to DIE OFF, so the new ideas can be "accepted".

This has lots of good stuff:
"The Web of Belief" by W. V. Quine
http://www.amazon.com/Web-Belief-W-V-Quine/dp/0075536099

He must have written it before he became totally academic. He seemed aware of the real world and how people actually think and form beliefs, not how mathematicians and academic philosophers prove each other wrong. I know he HAD to become academic and appeal to philosophy wonks to have any career. But it made him less interesting to me!

Rick,

You have compiled and expressed several points that are relevant to this and most other discussions. I hope some of them are able to penetrate the curtain of bias that seems to be hiding the truth and common sense here.

And i do hope everyone reads your post about the components of Roundup. I had never really paid any attention to the benefits of the phosphate in it,

I am going to take a look at the Web of Belief you reccommend.

Ernie

Rick,

It appears your well reasoned, documented, and clearly expressed points on the GMO last night, brought reason to the discussion and it was badly needed, as the discussion had become circular in nature and would never had reached an end on its own.

I want to thank you, because while it had been a very interesting debate, I think we all learned something from it, at least about human nature if nothing else.

Thanks,
Ernie

Hmmm, I was afraid I put everyone else to sleep.

Thank you for the very kind words.

An idea has been perking around in my head and trying to come to the surface related to this thread. Something like "why are feelings so aroused about this, and the talk so at-cross-purposes"?

Now I also notice that everyone cared passionately about "WE SHOULD" and "I CARE" and "I FEAR" or "NO ONE SHOULD FEAR" ... but only 1-2 people are interested to discuss the nerdy, wonky details of how to try to prove whether there is, isn't, or might be, something no worse than coffee grounds, or worse than raw sow manure.

I think part of it is that we are mixing several things without acknowledging that they are DIFFERENT things, mostly VERY different things and even different KINDS of things.

Some are more like values or personal decisions than measurable facts.
Like:
- how cautious do I CHOOSE to be, for myself, about synthetic chemicals I put in my body?
- how cautious do I think the world SHOULD be about releasing fields full of plants with transgenic DNA?
- how much do I TRUST Monsanto, pro-scientists, con-scientists, politicians, and activists?
- how much do I VALUE "reducing risk" vs "holding down the cost of food", compared to each other (how would I CHOOSE to trade those off against each other, if I were in charge?

Value decisions (like "what do I CARE most about?) can't be proven or disproved, or even much done to persuade people, because they come 80% from emotion and passion and long-held ideals. "Prove me wrong and I'll disbelieve you." More like religion and fear and desire than analysis. Because they are personal, they can't be usefully debated.

- - -

If it were POSSIBLE to resolve issues like those, we could probably discuss dispassionately "what each study meant" and what its technical drawbacks were. But we might also fall asleep, since those issues are REALLY HARD and excruciatingly technical.

Things that honest experiments should be able to determine:

- HOW MUCH glycophosphate remains in each crop after harvest (or breakdown products)
- HOW MUCH of that makes it all they way into the processed foods we buy
- what is the FREQUENCY of short-term effects on humans fed X, Y and Z amounts for a few years?
- WHAT and HOW MUCH of various contaminants is in the commercial products (not pure lab reagents)
- HOW FAST does it break down in soil, wash into streams, evaporate.
- WHAT are all the things it breaks down into, considering microbial action
- HOW MUCH do farmers apply:
- - - - any amount that is convenient and has a positive cost-benefit ratio
- - - - usually gross excess,
- - - - only enough to reduce losses, only when evidence shows heavy weeds are likely
- - - - more than they would have to, if they farmed in a totally different way and made less profit

(Even If someone could PROVE that XYZ was not and never COULD hurt ANYONE, they would still have to convince people with strong feelings to the contrary - there is probably denial on both sides of the debate).

Even if we had enough research grants and time to research HONESTLY all those MEASURABLE issues, there are still many important things almost impossible to prove.

- If billions of people ate X, Y or Z amount of glycophosphate from childhood to grave, did the health of any of them change for better or worse? Subtle, rare and long-term effects are all hard to prove or even detect.

- What changes occur in a plant with X, Y or Z amounts of glycophosphate in its tissues?

- How and how much would those speculative changes affect humans eating those plants over decades?

Because not everything is knowable or provable ahead of time, science can only take us so far. Then each person is either still worried, or UN-worried enough to keep food cheap.

And that is just "what would I do if I were in charge".

Next we would have to consider public policy for people who disagree about their individual values, who they believe, and even the "measurable" facts.

If the public policy is going to be decided by something like democracy, we need to remember (perhaps fear) the fact that a lot of voters smoke tobacco, drink to excess, eat fatty foods to gross excess, drive drunk, burn their house4s down while deep-frying turkeys, etc etc

It's a very imperfect world!

It's no surprise that we get even more worked up ab out this than about "the right way" to start seeds, fight damping off, or make compost.

Rick,
Coffee grounds or Sow manure.. This difference may be rooted in the amount of control we are willing to give other people over our own lives, or to try to regulate other people. I think there is a strong generational difference, as people as old as i am grew up with very few governmental controls, and we would not think of voting for a law that controlled the personal lives of other people. But as Society has become more complex, and Politicians have found it to be a lucrative career path, following generations have allowed themselves to be much more controlled, and not they think it is fine for the Government to pass regulations that control other people, so now different groups want the Government to pass laws regulating against everything they do not like. And for whatever reasons, perhaps just more awareness, most people are more fearful now than people formerly were.

Trusting Monsanto.... You should only trust any business to try to make money, as the Business of Business is Making Money. But you can absolutely trust the Unwritten Laws of the Market Place, to control businesses. If Monsanto, for instance, is successful in producing a better grain, that will feed more people and make people healthier, happier, and live longer, they will be greatly rewarded. BUT it is very risky to try new things, or be careless in how you run your business, or you will punished and driven out of business by the Market place and/or the Lawyers. Only recently, a simple peanut butter factory allowed their product to be contaminated, now they are in Bankrupctcy, and it will cost them every penny they have made. A few people died from poisoned peanut butter instead of being hit by a bus, but balance that by all the healthy happy hungry kids that have been helped through the years by the good peanut butter they made. That is life.

Value decisions cannot be proven.....is true, an people cannot be persuaded against their will. But we all need to make our own Value decisions and Personal Choices using as much common sense and proven factual information as we can muster, for our own interests. We should use logic and our own independent thinking to try to get the best for ourselves. We need to be our own best friend and not our own worst enemy. I value my independence, and prefer to pay for my own mistakes, rather than to follow someone blindly, as i will also have to pay for his mistakes.

Honest Experiments......I am sure with todays technology, all of the suggested items could be identified, BUT, in reality, what would the Cost/Benefit figure out to be. And, what would the reaction be to using Human Beings for the guinea pigs that would be necessary. That was tried in the past for TB, Syphyilis, Atomic Radiation and a few other things, and caused quite an uproar.

But the Market Place and the Economy will work it out, and that Risk is the Price we Pay for Progress. So far the Cost/Benefit ratio has been in our favor because the world is a better place because of the progress we have acheived. Or so i believe.

If Total Safet was proven......I do not believe such perfection could ever be reached. But even it it was, i do not think it would be desirable. Remember the Rats in the GMO test. They all died, either from old age or eating GMO, so in the long run, it did not make much difference to the rats, and probably does not make much difference to us at that time, whether we died from the old age or the GMO.

So, Rick, you and i wind up in the same place. It would be very hard to improve on the system we have now. It is not perfect, but it is the only one that seems to work.

And people do seem to get pretty worked up about what is the proper way to do the gardening. We all have very firm specific beliefs about a lot of things that obviously have many different suitable methods.

And i still do not worry about the Roundup, but Arsenic is a different thing completely.

Ernie

This icon on labels says the food has been "pasteurized which means it has been irradiated. Looks innocent enough.

http://www.farmtoconsumer.org/aa/aa-23sep2008.htm

I don't see why a similar icon could not be placed on food that has been genetically engineered. No need to change recipes. Simply "label it" with a pretty little icon. Then we, the consumers, would know what we are buying, and those who do not fear genetically altered food would be happy, and so would those who choose to avoid such adulteration.

What are genetic engineers afraid of? A pretty little icon?

I purchase organic fruit whenever possible, and each individual fruit has a sticker which gives country of origin and the word "organic". A little sticker that says "genetically engineered" is all that's necessary.

I was shocked when i heard the estimated cost of labeling the GMO food in CA was, I believe, 30 million dollars. I did not hear that figure disputed.

In order for the label to be guaranteed accurate, each canner, bottler, packager or manufacturer, would have to have a certified testing lab or its equal, to certify it was as stated.

Then, the Government Agency that enforces the statute, would have to duplicate the testing labs, to verify that the certified labels were as stated.

And then, the lawyers would have an entire new field to plow, looking for excuses to file lawsuits, frivolous or sincere, and adding all those costs up, makes that "pretty little icon" a "pretty expensive little icon."

Ernie

Wasn't that the case for all the labels we see on food, though? I'd rather pay a little more and know what's in it.

Yes, i am sure it is the same for all of them, and each additional regulation adds to the total. And that is one of the main reasons that everything now costs so much more than the basic product itself costs. The tin can and the few green beans or whatever, cost very little.

But rather than labeling all the cans, the vast majority of which will never be checked, perhaps the people that are interested could get specialty producers to GMO label different foods so those that want them, can find them, as the organic producers now do. You pay more for Organic products, to cover that cost, and no one objects to organic labels, even if they never choose the product.

Each straw weighs very little, but enough of them broke the Camel's back.

Labeling should be done, no matter the cost. Still surprised Cali voted against it. Breaking down the numbers, would cost $25 a month per household($300 per year) for labeling. Not bad at all. I'd pay that, but apparently many wouldn't.

If you buy meat from a store or butcher, you've eaten GMO's. There's never been a GMO meat law....yet, some companies are placating.

Anyways, grow your own. You'll never have a problem with GMO vegetables as a home grower.

Instead of Round Up, use distilled vinegar. It's a couple of dollars per gallon, doesn't sterilize the earth or kill earthworms and beneficial microbes, and will not pollute our groundwater. Put it, undiluted, into a spray bottle and spray away. Just don't spray anything you do not want to kill.

Wait a minute. You say vinegar won't kill earthworms, & microbes. Then "just don't spray anything you do not want to kill." What is that all about?

Ray,
It is not the 25.00 a month that is the main problem, it is the attitude that the Government can pass a regulation that will make us all safe and allow us to live forever.

If we do not stop passing rules and regulations for every conceivable thing, we are going to bury ourselves and our country in red tape, a long time before we are dead.

People have no right to complain about the government getting bigger and infringing on our own personal freedoms if we keep demanding they infringe on other people's freedoms.

Ernie

For us slow-dialup folks, how about a new thread?

This message was edited Mar 26, 2013 6:39 AM

GG,
Absolutely, 100%. You post a perfect example of the mess Government regulations cause.
Just like with the GMO, i have never seen evidence that Gay Marriage has ever harmed Heterosexual Marriage, and even having to make a decision, either way, about Abortion, must be one of the most difficult and most personal problems any of us will ever have in our life, and should be left to the people that have to make that decision.

Thank you for providing the example,

Ernie

Aha, we agree on something! I am with you 100% on this.

I suppose that some people were engaging in unnatural sex and aborting babies a long time ago. Except when it got to the degree of Sodom and brought God's wrath on them, I tend to feel that they can engage in such things and feel that they answer to God for this.

The problems come in when these things are touted as normal and must be accepted and funded by others who do not agree.