We see it all the time with farmland. Grandpa bought the land, had it paid for. Son farmed it for his lifetime. Grandson inherits it & blows the whole thing. To much work to farm!
GMOs - Continued
Willy,
I do believe that taxes, rules and regulations have an adverse effect on every nook and cranny of our lives, including Genetic Engineering. One of the main arguments when the GMO threads first started was whether it should be labeled and regulated or not.
In the past, when people demanded discussions be strictly limited, the discussions rapidly died, but opening them up to wider aspects gave us all a chance to learn other people's thoughts. And Willy, I am not sure how connected castration of pigs is to GMOs, but i think you learned something new there. LOL,
But i will be careful and only respond to comments by others, as i was doing in the post you commented on.
Errnie
Ernie, my comment was somewhat light hearted. Heck, I even made a smiley face! I actually enjoy the diversions and agree that it's easy to be too strict in limiting the scope of a thread. I've done my own share of digressing. I also heartily agree that regulations, profits (profit-bashing) and the like are part and parcel of several of these discussions we have going on. I did think that getting into illegal immigration was veering off course a bit far.
The pig castration was directly related to the paper on GMO fed and was simply a one-off comment by me about being surprised at it and somewhat "disturbed" by it. I'm not a PETA person (PETA should stand for People Eating Tasty Animals), but some of the details of animal operations are quite unexpected to someone who doesn't know about them. We can't all be lucky enough to be farm kids. I grew up in teeny, really teeny, mining towns and I'm guessing I could educate most of you on what you don't know about mining.
I'll also add the my sense of humor tends toward dry--some would say it just plain lousy--and I suspect "dry" doesn't always translate well into print.
As to me learning things, I've learned a bunch here from most everyone who has chipped in, not to mention from my reading on the side. I thank everyone who has contributed to this, and all other, threads. It's what makes DG a very worthwhile web site and why I will continue to be a paid member.
This message was edited Mar 5, 2014 11:52 AM
Willy,
We are on the same page here. I was pretty sure you were kidding, as i have enjoyed your excellent posts. My answer was also directed at some members that have very strict feelings about digressing from the title of the threads.
Notice i put the LOL after the pig joke.
While i am not too concerned about most of the subjects we discuss, I am very concerned about the destruction of our once prosperous middle class, caused by the burden of paying, mostly indirectly, for all of the taxes and the poorly conceived and terribly executed, government programs, including lack of solving the illegal immigration problem, so it is difficult for me to pass up an opportunity to point out who actually is paying for all of this.
So, no offense taken, nor intended.
Ernie, who lives 30 miles from the border.
While we worry about whether or not GMOs are bad for us, I note that a new report just out states that high protein consumption can shorten lives (Atkins diet, anyone?). It also says that maybe high protein is good for older folks, but not younger ones. There is no one who is a bigger believer is science than I am, but I think we'll worry ourselves to death if we fret about each new "discovery" on possible harm in our diets. All things in moderation, eh? And, don't worry, be happy!
Is there a DG equivalent for politics? Maybe a good opportunity there!
LOL noted (I did miss it previously).
Willy,
I am not positive, but i believe Political Discussions per se, may be forbidden by DG. That is directly Liberal v Conservative, but the Growing Government taxes and oppressive regulations are a product of both parties, so that is not directly political.
Terri reads all these posts, and she will let us know if we break the rules.
Ernie
Terry is going to have health problems due to inactivity if she really reads every post on DG. I assume that when people are all civil, they (we ) can (Might) fly under the radar.
I think the administrators primarily get involved when people alert them that there are problems.
Looking around Amazon today, I found a book by William Engdahl entitled "Seeds of Destruction". It was (as is too often the case) highly rated. It approaches the "dark side" of GMO not from a biology perspective but from a political/corporate point of view. The Amazon reviewers noted that it appeared well documented. I thought it sounded worth pursuing further. I googled Engdahl and found a wiki article that claims he is also a climate change denier, a denier of peak oil (in fact he denies the claim that fossil fuels are biological in origin, but are rather produced by geological forces deep in the earth). He apparently also claims that the Arab Spring was engineered by Bush (with the G8) and the Egyptian revolution of 2011 by Obama. I followed up with one claim to confirm Engdahl's beliefs about oil. I didn't try to confirm the other claims about his beliefs.
Needless to say, I won't be trying to get a copy of the book. Why is it that virtually all "popular" anti-GMO folks are loons?
Willy,
For sure, i do not know, but it is not just the GMO matter. It seems that a certain percentage of people, many of whom are smart and normal in other ways, often get carried away by really outrageous and unsubstantiated claims. I have known some of them personally, and could never figure out why.
Ernie
there are many people here freaked out by new 'smart meters' on the electrical utility.
I'm almost looking forward to hearing the cries of anguish when people start implanting cell phone receivers into their inner ears so they don't have to "do all the work" of holding the phone to their ears.
"Mental implants! Mind-control chips! Brain cancer!"
"Global conspiracy by aliens / governments / corporations / The Phone Company / Republicans / Liberals / jack-booted UN thugs / quiche-eating Socialists!"
I'm sure it will be entertaining. And then, when anyone disagrees with us, we can just ask him "do have The Chip in your head?!?" If they say yes, we can just nod wisely and say "I thought so" and then disregard their opinions completely since they are just echoing their masters' voice, be it aliens, governments, corporations or whatever.
Almost the only group I can think of that NO ONE accuses of being an evil global conspiracy is home gardeners.
(Edited to add:
And that's because no two of us can agree completely on anything gardening-related to save our lives. We can't even agree on COMPOSTING, and the only practical way to prevent things from composting is to freeze them solid.)
This message was edited Mar 6, 2014 3:52 PM
The first panic i can remember started about sixty years ago when people started worrying about Electrical Transmission Towers and power lines killing everyone near them by causing Brain Cancer.
I have always wondered where the buried all those people that must have died from that.
Ernie
Some more articles about GMOs - this one deals with toxicity levels in glyphosate as enhanced by the formulations in which it appears
http://www.hindawi.com/journals/bmri/2014/179691/
and this one discusses the possibility of glyphosate/Roundup as a causative agent in kidney pathology
http://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/11/2/2125
Gosh, I like quiche. Am I suspect?
greenhouse_gal,
I read parts of this link:
http://www.hindawi.com/journals/bmri/2014/179691/
... but the kicker is that it is testing the effect on bare human cells in tissue culture .
>> "We tested the toxicity of 9 pesticides, comparing active principles and their formulations, on three human cell lines (HepG2, HEK293, and JEG3)."
Those are incredibly delicate and sensitive to many things that a creature with skin would not be affected by. They are a good way to look for any POSSIBLE effect of a compound, but the single fact that something was toxic in tissue culture would not make me at all concerned that it was also toxic to whole organisms (until that was demonstrated by other lines of testing).
For example, when we did tissue culture in glass, we had to use special kinds of soap and 9-tmies-rinsing because it was impossible to rinse any normal soap enough times to keep ti from killing the very vulnerable HeLa cells we worked with.
Maybe the fact that some herbicide adjuvents are basically kinds of soap (surfactants or things that help put oily things into water solutions) was the reason that this kind of testing found the adjuvents "up to one thousand times more toxic than" the insecticides, herbicides or fungicides.
Probably because tissue-culture-testing is NOT a realistic way to evaluate overall toxicity to plants or animals.
I found this, but note they still say " cellular toxicity " and " cytotoxic " which are totally different from organism toxicity. If I'm right, their results would be relevant to spraying Roundup formulations around a tissue culture lab, not around a farm or lunchroom.
"We used the embryonic (HEK293), placental (JEG3), and hepatic (HepG2) human cell lines because they are well characterized and validated as useful models to test toxicities of pesticides [18–20], corresponding to what is observed on fresh tissue or primary cells [21–23]. These cell lines are even in some instances less sensitive than primary cells [24, 25] and therefore do not overestimate cellular toxicity. "
I know some of the text of that paper makes it sound like (Voice Of Doom) "We found things MANY HUNDREDS OF TIMES WORSE than herbicide active ingredients."
I read that as "these types of tests can detect hideous toxicity in hand soap and other harmless compounds". I might be wrong, but if aI was reading the paper for scientific content, I would look for the section where they went on and showed some RELEVANCE of their results to some part of some research program.
Something like "this team has a lot of expertise on detecting differential effects of different phospho-lipids on cell walls in human lung tissue with emphysema and now we want more funding to continue our research".
Here is the closest I found:
"Adjuvants in pesticides are generally declared as inerts ..."
If they are saying that their research suggests more research is desirable into the (realistic) toxicity of adjuvents in every kind of agricultural product, more power to them. Maybe the entire industry and every lab that ever looked at toxicity OVERlooked the effects of the adjuvents. Maybe.
Or more likely they found that applying a very inappropriate kind of test can find cytotoxicty almost anywhere.
"In the scientific literature, in contrast with regulatory beliefs, some harmful effects of the adjuvants present in this study are reported. In the formulations (Table 1) Starane 200, Opus, and Eyetak, the adjuvants include solvent naphtha (a petroleum distillate), which is known to have developmental effects in rodents [33]. Xylene (in Eyetak)"
That started out snippy and boastful, then got ludicrous. DUHH! Are they saying that they "discovered" that naptha and Xylene are toxic? Normally I would stop reading except for noting the authors' names for future reference when looking for a chuckle, but not useful information.
"The distinction between AP and “declared inert” compounds appears to be a regulatory assumption with no toxicological basis,"
I guess that can be taken with a straight face except for the tone.
I guess the whole paper could be boiled down to "most agricultural product labels only list as ACTIVE ingredients those that are ACTIVE in insecticidal or herbicidal effect. Soaps, surfactants, solvents and other things that help deliver the insecticide are not listed as ACTIVE ingredients. The other ingredients are mostly known by high school students to have well-understood and obvious toxic or irritant properties to some greater or lesser degree."
If they want to say that every TOXIC ingredient should be listed as a TOXIC ingredient, fine, but that does not make them "ACTIVE" in the sense that everyone uses the word on labels.
Not having to list proprietary mixtures like naptha or Xylene as an ingredient in the MSDS sheet is more of a legal question than a practical one: in those two cases, anyone with a nose KNOWS - what you smell is what you get.
I wasn't sure how much that paper was deliberately misleading and how much it was just "nose buried in test tube" near-sightedness.
This makes me think "deliberately misleading":
"It is commonly believed that Roundup is among the safest pesticides. This idea is spread by manufacturers, mostly in the reviews they promote [39, 40], which are often cited in toxicological evaluations of glyphosate-based herbicides. However, Roundup was found in this experiment to be 125 times more toxic than glyphosate. Moreover, despite its reputation, Roundup was by far the most toxic among the herbicides and insecticides tested. This inconsistency between scientific fact and industrial claim may be attributed to huge economic interests, which have been found to falsify health risk assessments and delay health policy decisions [41]."
They measured cytotoxicity in tissue culture, than reported conclusions about "toxicity". The polite term would be "deliberately misleading", but they go on to blather politics in the conclusion of what they allege to be a scientific paper, hypocritically committing the sin they blame others for:
"This inconsistency between scientific fact and industrial claim may be attributed to huge economic interests, which have been found to falsify health risk assessments and delay health policy decisions [41]."
BZZZT. That's enough reason for me to class them as "liars" and try to remember their names as unscrupulous. Even if large biotech firms DO slant their results, these "scientists" did not measure and observe that, so including it in their 'conclusions" is BS. They should instead have listed those beliefs in their introductions (we are anti-agribusiness zealots) or under conflicts of interest where they sanctimoniously claim "none".
Robin Mesnage,
Nicolas Defarge,
Joël Spiroux de Vendômois,
Gilles-Eric Séralini
BioMed Research International ("open access journal")
Hindawi Publishing Corporation
Now that I think about it, I've seen "Séralini" elsewhere. I wish I remembered where, so I could be more skeptical of that one as well.
There was a subject about renewing land that had been mined in western states on RFD-TV this morning.
It works like this, spread seeds of native plants & grasses. Then cover the area with hay. Turn cattle in until they eat most of the hay. The cattle moving around, get the seeds into the soil & their manure & hay waste fertilizes it. Move the cattle off the land. Then as soon as it rains the seeds sprout & grow. It can't be duplicated by mechanical means.
Just thought this fit as much as other things on this thread.
greenhouse_gal said:
>> and this one discusses the possibility of glyphosate/Roundup as a causative agent in kidney pathology
http://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/11/2/2125
I would have said it differently. Something like "the kidney-toxcity of arsenic, cadmium, Chromium etc in drinking water may become worse when Roundup runoff is added".
(P.S. If it is the chelating effect that makes arsenic more toxic, the same thing happens with the chelating agent EDTA which is in toothpaste and many other household products.)
The way you said it sounds more like discussing whether RU harms kidneys.
Instead this explicitly said that
"glyphosate alone does not cause an epidemic of chronic kidney disease, "
The paper was talking about heavy metals that are known to kill kidney cells becoming more toxic when chelated with Roundup (and then, from the illustration, when the runoff from sprayed fields entered drinking water).
It presents their theory that Roundup may make certain metals known to kill kidney cells MORE toxic.
It is quite clear that it is talking only about certain local conditions including "nephrotoxic metals" and hard water.
Note that the metals they are talking about include Arsenic, Cadmium, Chromium, Nickle, Cobalt and Vanadium.
" Here, we have hypothesized the association of using glyphosate, the most widely used herbicide in the disease endemic area and its unique metal chelating properties. The possible role played by glyphosate-metal complexes in this epidemic has not been given any serious consideration by investigators for the last two decades. Furthermore, it may explain similar kidney disease epidemics observed in Andra Pradesh (India) and Central America. Although glyphosate alone does not cause an epidemic of chronic kidney disease, it seems to have acquired the ability to destroy the renal tissues of thousands of farmers when it forms complexes with a localized geo environmental factor (hardness) and nephrotoxic metals.
The illustration also seems to suggest that the toxic heavy metals came from the fertilizer used. I hadn't heard about fertilizer as a source of Cadmium, Chromium, etc.
I feel very much as though the anti-GMO folks and the young earth creationist folks are one in the same kind. They just KNOW that their ideas are correct and they cannot abide any other conclusion. I am actually quite surprised that the scientific evidence for the anti-GMO side is so weak. Prior to this discussion (in these DG threads) I was definitely not an advocate on either side, but I did feel a certain queasiness, and still do I guess, about us "messin' with genes". It's probably fair to say that I was predisposed to find in favor of anti-GMO positions. On the other hand, I am a hard core skeptic and a strong believer in science as the only real truth in the long run (last four words are key).
Despite the above, I conclude that the anti-GMO side hasn't a leg to stand on in terms of actually showing (to date) that real danger and real damage have occurred. I continue to be wary of the possibility of negative effects from SOME GMO products (allergies and the like), but...I refuse to believe the genetic "equivalent" of the earth being 6,000 years old. I hope at least some folks who were skeptical of GMOs have had their opinions tempered.
Rick, thank you for your rigorous and unbiased approach to this topic. To all of you, from GG to drobarr to CG to Ernie to many more of you, thanks very much for contributing.
Thanks for taking a look, Rick. And it's my fault for using shorthand re the possible effects of RU on kidneys. Mea culpa! I still thought the article was interesting, though.
GHG, I figured that you were not deliberately slanting a description.
It WAS very interesting and refreshingly honest. They called a spade a spade and a theory a theory.
I was trying to figure out why they made such a big deal about "hard water" until I saw a phrase that implied some researchers had already correlated the chronic kidney damage with hard water (Ca, Mg and Fe, I think).
I wonder if that helps the really toxic metals get into drinking water, or disguises the taste so people don't know to avoid the arsenic/Rounup runoff. Or stresses kidneys so they are more prone to damage. Or correlates geologically with the toxic heavy metals.
Anyway, it's worth remembering that Roundup (like EDTA and any other chelating agent) makes many metals including arsenic more soluble. If you're farming in toxic-metal-contaminated soil, maybe Roundup is NOT a good idea.
Or, if you have enough rainfall and good drainage, it might help leach arsenic out of the root zone (as long as it doesn't carry it into the water table).
Metals can be nasty.
P.S. The "iron phosphate" slug bait also has a chelating agent (EDTA) to help the slugs take large amounts of iron into their (?blood?) and choke on it. I forget whether that MSDS sheet took the chelating agent into account when it discussed the toxicity of the iron phosphate!
Willy,
You should have included yourself on the list, as you have added to it, also.
I never counted the people on each side when the GMO discussion first started, but as i recall there were many more contributors on the Anti GMO side, and most of the ones on the other side were not so much for it as just skeptical of the claims being made of the dangers.
For whatever reason, most of the Anti GMO faction have dropped out of the discussion, while the other side has gained adherents, some of whom, like Rick and Drobarr that had the expertise to present facts in such a way they are difficult to deny.
I have learned a lot and also enjoyed the discussion very much.
thanks,
Ernie
Ernie...
I couldnt agree more. As a scientist myself I would beleive that GMO's were harmful if there was science that showed that. But so far I havent seen any study to date that shows it is any more harmful than non GMO agriculture.
I think GMO's should be tested to make sure they continue to be safe.
And overall I see GMO's of being of benefit into the future more so than they have up to now.
I think it also goes to show sometimes the wackiness of your opponents can often help your own cause. Especially when their arguments are based on an emotion or an imagination rather than scientific experimentation.
Dr. Mae Wan Ho is a big anti-GMO person--PhD in genetics no less. Unbelievably, she doesn't/can't see the obvious quackery behind the stunning corn comparison AND she is an advocate of homeopathy. Homeopathic remedies are prepared by diluting an original solution in water (maybe other things like alcohol too) to the point where there are literally no molecules of the original substance left. Homeopaths believe that somehow the original substance leaves behind an "essence" or some such crap. I used to think that homeopathy was somewhat like herbalism, maybe not 100% scientific, but with some validity acquired from folk wisdom through years of experience. Not so--they're quacks.
Every single time you run a prominent anti-GMO person to ground, you find...a nut. Homeopaths, flying yogis, exogenous semiotic entropy,...
This is not to say that the concerns of some aren't justified. It is to say that the "legitimately" concerned don't present false evidence and fantastical lies.
As to what causes so many people to get carried away with baseless worries and concerns, it seems to me the main underlying reason for a lot of it is simply that Common Sense is Not Very Common.
Ernie
Mostly it's their fear of corporations.
I cannot believe the reactions we got when we were forced to move our Farmers Market location.
The mall parking lot where we were for 27 years told us we were no longer welcome.
We had to look for new location. Only lot big enough & OK to use was a Best Buy parking lot. (We have upwards of 40 vendors.) The Best Buy guy was very favorable & gave us some very good help & a very good deal.
People started responding on our FB page.
Many claimed they wouldn't shop the market as long as it was on corporate property.
Dah! The mall is also owned by a corporation.
Talk about no common sense!
Is there much besides corporations in business these days ?
Even most family owned farms are corporations.
What the heck, our market organization is incorporated!
CG,
It may be Fear, but it also may be Ignorance. Everyone with a pension depends on Corporations making money to be able to pay dividends to the Pension Funds where their checks come from, or to pay Government taxes if their pension comes from the Government.
I have never understood why people do not take the time to study just what it is that keeps their comfortable lives moving along on the right path.
Ernie
it may be fear and it may be ignorance....but I think farmers are to blame...
American farmers have managed to provide more than enough safe, clean and healthy food for very cheap consistently for years and years. This has allowed the average person to stop worrying about their next meal, where its going to come from, or how they are going to afford it. How they are going to grow it. They dont worry about crop failure or pestilence, or how to can or store their food. They dont worry about if they can store enough to make it to the next crop. They dont worry about if it is going to rain or not and how that will affect their harvest. They dont worry about weeds overtaking their crop and they arent out there breaking their backs day after day after day hoeing weeds. They dont worry about what to do when food runs out.
Since modern farmers have removed the worries that humans had on a daily basis since human history began...we now have the luxery to worry about something else. Not only worry about something else...we have the time to worry about other things. Many of them things that dont need to be worried about! In fact we have so much time that now farmers are seen as villans...instead of what they truly are which are heroes.
But again maybe we would be better off without farmers....without them we might begin to worry about the things that really matter...
I just read a history of Monsanto.
Better stop your medicines if you oppose Monsanto. Lots of the popular ones were invented by Monsanto or their acquired companies.
Lots of interesting information in there.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto
Interesting commentary from Mother Jones, of all places:http://www.motherjones.com/blue-marble/2012/06/gmo-bt-pesticides-crops.
Thanks for the link, Willy. It just froze up my computer for 10min.
Well, you're in frigid MN (I was a Youper once upon a time) and you probably have eaten too much lutefisk...or played too much curling.
The link did work fine for me.
Just plain stupid!
I couldn't find anything about GMOs or bt on that page; there was a creepy article about BPA but that was it.
>> the wackiness of your opponents can often help your own cause.
I agree.
Late one night, after several beers, I came up with a theory that Monsanto stimulated the "anti-GMO" press by planting rabid and exaggerated anti-GMO stories. That gave some activists the idea that they could get away with wildly unsupported scare tactics and blatant deceit. They figured that, if they drew the yoga-flying fringe into the anti-GMO movement, it would discredit reasonable "anti" arguments.
Probably just a conspiracy-theory daydream. The unscrupulous propagandists didn't need any help discrediting and drowning out the reasonable people with concerns. However, they've also drowned out the basic science and reasonable people on BOTH sides.
>> Every single time you run a prominent anti-GMO person to ground, you find...a nut. Homeopaths, flying yogis, exogenous semiotic entropy,...
I don't know - maybe it is just that nuts feel free to use short, emotional, scary arguments that "play well" in mainstream press and in people's imaginations. Both reporters and many readers change channels after several minutes of long words and longer sentences. So the "nuts" become well-known and are widely published.
Politicians find that emotional "sound bites" sell people better than long, technical explanations that start out "it's really complicated ...". The sound bite doesn't have to be true or make any sense, to excite people.
>> This is not to say that the concerns of some aren't justified. It is to say that the "legitimately" concerned don't present false evidence and fantastical lies.
Unfortunately, that restricts them to accurate but boring truths!
- - - - - -
>> it may be fear and it may be ignorance...but I think farmers are to blame...
Genius! If you could get the farmers to do a "Lysistrata" for one week, withholding food shipments, it might make people think about how dependent the 98% are on the 2% (farmers and ranchers).
Actual understanding of anything complex, is way too much time and effort for many people.
Sorry to all of you for the bad link. Here it is again: http://www.motherjones.com/blue-marble/2012/06/gmo-bt-pesticides-crops.
If that doesn't work, try a search for "Sarah Zhang" (the author) and "In Defense of Genetically Modified Crops" (article title). I found it with the search words mother jones gmo--it was the sixth hit on a google search.
I didn't mean to offend, CG, it was a light hearted attempt at humor from a former fellow northerner (it is "freezing" in MN, right?).
Rick--I don't buy the "sound bite" argument. At least I'll say that I hope we as a country aren't that stupid yet. I do mean what I said--every PROMINENT anti-GMO person (that I've read) is a nut case. If you (everyone, not Rick alone) aren't familiar with homeopathy, do a little digging. The basis for it is crazy. Notice that the Union of Concerned Scientists publishes reasonable, logical concerns, not idiotic hysteria. And I still don't buy into the "Monsanto et al" are evil argument either.
>> Actual understanding of anything complex, is way too much time and effort for many people.
Hmm! Maybe that is most of what's wrong with modern society.
We can eat and sleep and have TV and Internet access without putting out very much effort (once we manage to find a job).
Few people are used to working hard anymore unless they're personally driven by some passion (or they have so much job stress that they don't do anything but drink and blog after going home).
But trying to understand most modern issues is like having a hive of bees live in your head! And hard work.
Your idea also explains most of modern politics:
Replace thought with sound bites.
Replace "getting to the truth" with accepting lies as normal.
Replace difficult compromise with tantrums.
Replace "understanding different points of view" with "demonizing hyper-partisanship".
Replace "making things work" with denial and disaster.
Hmm.