none

3/27/2014 9:05:56 AM

There are no conclusive negative health effects, although I think there are some areas that deserve more study.

but, for the love of god, please stop equating selective breeding and GMOs. In selective breeding, we are selecting traits that the plant or a similar plant has developed naturally, and using natural reproduction to enhance or make those traits more dominant. In GMOs we are often selecting traits that aren't even from the same animal kingdom (grafting bacterium traits into plants) using viruses to insert that unrelated DNA into the plant.

3/27/2014 9:48:32 AM

its still the same thing

3/27/2014 10:31:56 AM

but one sounds scary (to the idiot masses), so it must be bad!

[Edited on March 27, 2014 at 10:51 AM. Reason : .]

3/27/2014 10:51:15 AM

I see no reason why GMO crops shouldn't be labeled as such.

3/27/2014 11:01:01 AM

not the same thing IMO.

In one case you are controlling natural reproduction to enhance DNA, in the other you are controlling DNA to enhance DNA.

That doesn't make GMOs dangerous per se, but don't tell me "Herp Derp, humans have been doing this for thousands of years."

3/27/2014 11:02:56 AM

controlling natural reproduction == manipulating DNA

did you not study Punnett in middle or high school biology?

[Edited on March 27, 2014 at 11:11 AM. Reason : damn autocorrect]

3/27/2014 11:10:32 AM

yes, but its manipulating DNA already present in the organism. Its not inserting DNA from a totally different organism.

We might find that granny smith apples trees are more resistant to pests than our red delicious apple trees. With a breeding program between the two trees we might be able to also produce a more resistant red delicious apple tree. We use sexual reproduction to tease out the genes that are naturally found within the trees and then use it to select the genes we want to dominate.

With GMOs we are taking a gene from a bacteria, manipulating it slightly in the laboratory, then using an unrelated virus to enter the tree cells so that the bacterial gene can be inserted into the tree DNA.

For those to be the same thing, gene transfer between bacteria and plants would need to be a common, everyday occurrence, it just isn't.

3/27/2014 11:25:53 AM

its all natural, all they are doing is compressing how long it takes

3/27/2014 11:33:30 AM

Even GMO companies tell us that gene transfer between higher order plants and bacteria is highly unlikely (it cant occur without their very specific help, therefore its not natural). If that wasnt the case our gut bacteria would be spewing Bt toxins transferred from some of the GMO crops we eat, probably making us sick (this was an actual concern when GMOs were first being developed).

3/27/2014 1:04:34 PM

I'm with you that they aren't the same, but the "natural" label seems arbitrary. And beyond that (and I know you're not making this point) I hate seeing "natural" conflated with "good" or "unnatural" with "bad."

3/27/2014 1:28:06 PM

I love how they can just blithely say GM corn is "unsafe".

Not only has its safety been reviewed by a number of organizations (despite insane claims to the contrary), all of you in this thread have likely eaten it.

Round-up ready corn alone has been been on the market for almost 2 decades and right now almost all corn grown in the Unites States is GM in some way (adoption rate for herbicide tolerant corn like round-up ready varieties is 85%).

If you've eaten a Dorito, you've eaten GM corn. How are you feeling?

4/5/2014 5:48:03 PM

Terd Ferguson,

With conventional breeding, you're taking one plant with traits you find desirable and crossbreeding it with another. That process means you're swapping lots of genes at once and just hoping the ones responsible for the trait you like get swapped over. Its a very messy process. That sounds less scary than transgenic breeding?

What about mutation breeding, which has been in use for decades? That's where you expose a plant to radiation or chemicals in the hopes one of the random of mutations that causes will generate a trait you like. That sounds less scary than transgenic breeding? It must, because plants generated with mutation breeding can be labeled organic.

I recommend checking out Nathaniel Johnson's posts on GM crops over at Grist. He makes a lot of interesting points (including the ones I made above). Here is part 1:

http://grist.org/food/genetic-engineering-vs-natural-breeding-whats-the-difference/

4/5/2014 6:04:08 PM

Quote :

"That sounds less scary than transgenic breeding?"

No, not scary at all. I'm reminded every year, at about this time, that plants blow their load indiscriminately as far and wide as they possibly can, however, the organisms have to be closely related enough to reproduce. Its extremely unlikely you are going to get, for instance, a tree and corn to reproduce. This has been the PRIMARY way many higher order plants have passed genetic information on to their ancestors for 100 million years. Likewise for mutations, which have been occurring in plants for even longer.

Grist is a great blog (well, most of the time), and the author of that article puts the difference between sex and genetic engineering more eloquently than I ever could:

From the UK GM Science Review Panel

Quote :

"There is, of course, one potentially important difference: A special feature of GM breeding is that it allows the transfer into crop plants of one or a few genes from what might be radically different organisms. Conventional breeding cannot, for example, form plants that can assemble complex human immunoglobulins as has been achieved in GM plants. This inevitably raises uncertainty about whether there are any novel genetic interactions and whether these are potentially harmful …"

That's why I feel GE is fundamentally different. We are selecting traits from a totally different organism than the plant. In some cases, scientist select traits from plants and put them in other plants using a GE process (ie. beta-carotene traits in golden rice). We still need to pay attention to what we are doing here, obviously (some GMOs with Brazil nut allergens grafted into them), but on some level its closer to sexual reproduction. Selecting traits from a totally different organism is on a different level evolutionarily (Bt Toxin and roundup-ready crops). The bottom line is that gene transfer from bacteria to higher order plants is very unlikely, thanks to a plant's immune system, but that's exactly the type of gene modification GE achieves.

Again, that's not to say that GE organisms are dangerous. Just that grouping all gene transfer processes as the exact same is disingenuous.

4/5/2014 9:18:40 PM

http://action.sumofus.org/a/starbucks-gmo-gma/?sub=fb

Quote :

" Starbucks doesn't think you have the right to know what's in your coffee. So it's teamed up with Monsanto to sue the small U.S. state of Vermont to stop you from finding out. Hiding behind the shadowy "Grocery Manufacturers Association", Starbucks is supporting a lawsuit that's aiming to block a landmark law that requires genetically-modified ingredients be labeled. Amazingly, it claims that the law is an assault on corporations' right to free speech. Even a local Vermont company, Green Mountain Coffee, has joined in."

11/12/2014 11:06:23 AM

While I don't have a problem requiring food to be labeled with all ingredients, sources, etc., this uproar over GMOs is one of the dumbest campaigns of recent time.

11/12/2014 12:29:50 PM

agreed. but not the uproar over Monsanto. or requiring food to be labeled with ingredients. and if they're made with GMOs, they should be labeled as such, even if that's not necessarily a bad thing.

11/12/2014 1:06:51 PM

I would like to know what kind of GMO, has it been modified for increased resistance to pesticides (which I may choose to avoid as a consumer) or has it been modified for resistance to insects (which I may prefer as a consumer over non GMO)

11/12/2014 1:54:59 PM

Just out of curiosity, why would you prefer resistance to insects over pesticides?

11/12/2014 2:13:03 PM

i meant herbicide resistant before. insect resistant crops reduce the use of pesticides, so they are going to reduce the amount of pesticide residues that i consume. herbicide tolerant either reduce the use less or increase it per at least one study I've seen so there is less advantage or potentially increased use.

(and I said may because i would want to do some more reading, it hasn't mattered before because it's too difficult for me to know as a consumer what kind of GMO technology is used even if i knew something contained GMO. I'm not worried about GMO's, but I would like to try to avoid pesticide residue (and increased metals like cadmium)

[Edited on November 12, 2014 at 2:28 PM. Reason : .]

11/12/2014 2:23:23 PM

Not that this has much or anything to do with Monsanto, but

http://www.cnn.com/2015/02/16/health/apples-genetically-modified-usda/index.html

No more brown apples.

I don't really care about GMO foods when it has the potential to help bring down costs of food or helps hungry people, but this seems like kind of a waste. I mean do we really care if apples brown?

2/16/2015 9:38:10 PM

the main benefit here is the reduction of food waste and preservatives for pre-packaged sliced apples and that sort of thing.

2/17/2015 1:56:21 PM

with the ungodly amount of perfectly good fruit/produce that gets thrown out in this country, yeah, I'm fine with it

2/17/2015 2:06:45 PM

Remember this folks, for as many farmers who talk about the big evil of GMO, this crusade has also allowed those organic and natural farmers to be more successful.

At the same token, knowing whats in your food "Organic" and otherwise is a general mess unless you grow it yourself.

Organic farmers may not use roundup, but they can certainly use tons of other "Organic" pesticides and weed control agents that are just as bad if not worse.
http://www.omri.org/sites/default/files/opl_pdf/crops_category.pdf

GMO is the future if you want to feed 7 billion people, just like antibiotics and artificial knees are the future if you want the average population to live past 70... If there is one thing that sets humanity apart is our ability to bend the world to our wim, and not the other way.

[Edited on February 22, 2015 at 9:56 PM. Reason : dd]

2/22/2015 9:50:45 PM

I'd personally just be happy with legislation requiring all foods to be labeled with all relevant details. Is it really so much to ask that the consumer be allowed to make their own decision about whether they want GMO foods or not? I eat them, but I don't see the massive downside in allowing everyone access to that knowledge.

Will it hurt GMO products? Maybe, but I doubt it, and isn't that kind of a fight against the free market, assuming that people with access to the information they want won't buy your product, whether ill advised or not?

2/23/2015 10:21:11 AM

Quote :

"Is it really so much to ask that the consumer be allowed to make their own decision about whether they want GMO foods or not? I eat them, but I don't see the massive downside in allowing everyone access to that knowledge."

I get what you're trying to say, the problem is that "GMO" is not a specific term.

There's tons of ways to modify the genome of a crop, some of them being very natural. Almost none of the food we eat exists naturally in nature, they have all been selectively bread, even before gene splicing, to fit our needs-- all foods are GMOs in this sense.

The problem with labelling laws is that giving plants with traits selectively bred special treatment compared to plants that have had traits inserted by modified viruses isn't really "fair". Selective breeding isn't necessarily safer than genetic modifications. If you really want to have a label for consumer choice, I'd argue that you'd simply want a list of traits added to a crop by human actions, whether this was direct gene insertion, or selective breeding in a lab, or selective breeding over the years by farmers.

2/23/2015 1:54:53 PM

I'd have no qualms with that ^ as a solution

2/23/2015 2:36:10 PM

the problem is at that point your product labeling becomes unwisely and unusable.

Many products aren't sole source, I.E. the limes you buy may be from many farms (organic or not).

and all organic and non organic crops can be easily summed up to the following, and guess what they are all modified.

Crop modified from natural source to provide:
Disease Resistance
Optimum Crop Yield
Optimum grow rate for growing area
Optimum plant to harvest time
Optimum time to market


So then you end up with a label like this, and even then you don't konw what really is in them.

Limes potentially treated with the following products:
Citric Acid
Nodulator® Liquid Inoculan
Mycorise® ASP
Ice Slicer® Granular Ice Melt
VANSIL® W-30 Wollastonite
Zen-O-Spore
MeloCon® WG Biological
Nematicide
Ecotec® Broad Spectrum
Insecticide and Miticide
Copper Sulfate Crystals
Nitrozyme™ Concentrate
CSC Copper Sulfur Dust
Fungicide
Oleotrol®-I Bio-Insecticide
Concentrate
Di-Oxy Solv Plus™ Broad
Spectrum Algaecide / Bactericide
/ Fungicide
BVA Spray 13
PROGRANIC® NeemAcar
Insecticida/ Concentrado
Emulsionable


Frankly I would worry much less about if the product is GMO or not, and more about what was sprayed on it.

I.E. spraying wholly organic "night soil" might be a great way to fertilze those strawberries, that doesn't make them more nutritious or and makes them a much less safe than spraying them with miracle grow.

ohh yea excerpt form the organic pesticide Di-Oxy Solv Plus

Quote :

"This product is highly toxic to bees and other beneficial insects exposed to direct contact on blooming crops or weeds. Do not apply this product or allow it to drift to blooming crops or weeds while bees are actively visiting the treatment area. Do not apply this product or allow it to drift to crops where beneficials are part of an Integrated Pest Management strategy. "

[Edited on February 24, 2015 at 12:35 AM. Reason : dd]

2/24/2015 12:28:07 AM

Back in the day we used to ride horses everywhere.... Now the unnatural auto industry convinced us to become addicted to oil, and build a reliance on ever fewer paths between destinations called "Roads"

These roads and cars have degraded irreplaceable natural environments, and they pollute our rivers our oceans and us.

So a sustainable horse based transportation system is better for us, and better for small scale horse raisers.

2/24/2015 12:45:17 AM

^^ I have tons of products in my kitchen and bathroom right now that have labels with as much or more words than that example. Will that turn some people off from reading them? Sure. But I think people who really want to know where their food comes from and what was sprayed on it would have no problem with that level of information.

2/24/2015 9:16:45 AM

^ I'll tell you who will have problems with that-- anyone who doesn't want to see their grocery bill increase. Because that's a goddamn guarantee.

There's no valid reason to mandate labels for GMOs.

- As others said, all foods are genetically modified from what they once were.
- The actual food products are no different than conventional crops.
- the act of labeling itself implies there's a substantive difference from conventional crops, and lends credence to misinformation.
- implicit labeling already exists. UDSA organic foods cannot be composed of GMO crops. No additional labeling should be required if it's simply about choice.

[Edited on February 24, 2015 at 11:13 AM. Reason : .]

2/24/2015 11:12:34 AM

^^El Gimpy

the point is those products are not just single things like "Sodium Chloride" you would need to look them up from each manufacturer.


Also again crop sources for something like apples may come from many different farms, requiring an ingredient list of any substance that any farmer at any of the farms may have sprayed. You would break distribution and retailers ability to sell products with that type of labeling.... Well except for the mega farms that use teh real chemicals.

2/26/2015 12:01:24 AM

I really don't see how the amount or variation of information you're describing is that different from what's on the back of the average bottle of shampoo or hand soap, yet I can still buy either of those for dirt ass cheap

Most people have to look up what's in that stuff too. I see that you're saying this info is different, because it changes per company...it's still available though

2/26/2015 9:56:32 AM

the problem is when your manufacturing hand soap you don't change ingredients because hey this month it was extra dry, or this month there was heavy weevil activity, or the farmer next to you had a downy mildew outbreak.

This type of labeling would be especially prohibitive organic farmers, who in many cases can only spray control agents in certain circumstances.

Your comparing something that has to grow in a natural environment (the one you want) with varying humidity, disease, animal, and insect threats across a varied landscape of different soil conditions with a product (shampoo) which is composed of a series of off the shelf chemical/components provided by other manufacturers.

Shampoo also a product that be easily mass produced in an assembly line style across different regional areas/factories (i.e. you know your 5 factories producing dove are using the exact same ingredients in the exact same amounts and putting it in the exact same bottle). Your grocery store doesn't care if this shipment of Dove comes from California, or comes from Utah, or from New Mexico. Your also dealing with a product that has nearly infinite shelf life, and can be produced year round at the same locations.

The store
If i'm running a grocery store and buying organic apples, i'm not going to buy from John's apple farm, I'm buying it from a vendor that will source Organic apples from wherever they can get them at that time.

The Vendor
Might get organic apples from 100s of farms including John's Apple Farm and Jim's Apple farm in order to meet demands or seasons.
Keeping each farms apples separated into nice buckets so that bucket A has only John's Apples which were exposed to these 20 compounds and Bucket B. has apples from Jim's farm which were exposed to a different 20 compounds becomes a logistical issue for the supplier (again because of different conditions between the farms).
In addition the compounds used by even a single farm may vary throughout the growth season, meaning even within the supply delivered by Jim's farm may have different compounds per delivery batch.

The Grocer
Even if my vendor can supply single source apples with appropriate labeling I'm now going to have to hang up a different sign of "exposed to" chemicals every shipment that comes in from a different source or batch. So i'm going to take the easy way out and just hang up a sign that says could be exposed to these chemicals/compounds, and hang a 20 page pamphlet off of it.

[Edited on February 26, 2015 at 6:54 PM. Reason : bb]

2/26/2015 6:49:49 PM

2/26/2015 8:50:32 PM

bastards

http://eatlocalgrown.com/article/14900-top-politicians-making-gmo-labeling-illegal.html

Quote :

"New documents from OpenSecrets claim that House of Representatives lawmakers who voted for the Safe and Accurate Food Labeling Act of 2015, a law which would stop any labeling of GMO foods, were paid at least three times as much by food industry lobbyists compared to other members of the chamber."

video shows top 5 paid assholes

9/10/2015 8:17:22 AM

it would stop mandatory labeling, which is a good thing.

The anti-GMO movement has absolutely no basis in science and simply preys on the public's emotional response to the "RAWR RAWR MONSANTO IS EVIL" meme.

9/10/2015 10:21:46 AM

^ Regardless, people have a right to know what they are putting in their bodies. And if they don't want to eat GMO foods, that's their right, and they should have a way to find out which foods contain GMO crops.

9/10/2015 1:04:59 PM

^^^^^pretty old post...but a really good one.

tbh, i'm not exactly sure where i stand on this issue. on one hand, i have no problem with GMOs. labeling of GMOs would not change my eating and buying habits. and i think people should know what it's in their food. on the other hand, i also think some of the support for labeling is founded in the "all natural" and "if you can't pronounce it, don't eat it" trends which i find to be bullshit and anti-science. so i think my concern is whether or not GMO labeling would further contribute to that anti-science rhetoric and continue the "GMOs are evil, pesticides are evil" stuff. ultimately, with better education i think the labeling thing becomes far less important of an issue.

[Edited on September 10, 2015 at 1:48 PM. Reason : gg]

9/10/2015 1:27:43 PM

Quote :

"they should have a way to find out which foods contain GMO crops."

there's already a simple way to do this. look for the packaging that says GMO-Free. if it doesn't say GMO-Free, it's safe to assume it contains GMO ingredients.

9/10/2015 4:10:30 PM

Quote :

"^ I'll tell you who will have problems with that-- anyone who doesn't want to see their grocery bill increase. Because that's a goddamn guarantee. There's no valid reason to mandate labels for GMOs. - As others said, all foods are genetically modified from what they once were. - The actual food products are no different than conventional crops. - the act of labeling itself implies there's a substantive difference from conventional crops, and lends credence to misinformation. - implicit labeling already exists. UDSA organic foods cannot be composed of GMO crops. No additional labeling should be required if it's simply about choice."

It's not that the GMO itself is bad--it's more that roundup is bad. The conflation between the two is a misunderstanding of the arguments against GMOs. I don't know enough about it to say definitely whether or a Mexican with no other opportunities shouldn't be allowed to pick crops because he could get cancer from some cocktail of pesticides/insecticides organic or not, GMO or not. Also, whether that cocktail poses some kind of consumption risk to the end user. I'm sure there are plenty of studies done and propagated by those that have enough money to shop at Whole Foods and be smug about it, versus those that have class envy and don't.

9/10/2015 7:41:07 PM

Quote :

"^ Regardless, people have a right to know what they are putting in their bodies. And if they don't want to eat GMO foods, that's their right, and they should have a way to find out which foods contain GMO crops. "

To be certified USDA Organic, the food or food product may not contain GMOs. So if you choose not to eat GMOs, then buy organic.


also:




and finally:

Quote :

"It's not that the GMO itself is bad--it's more that roundup is assumed to be bad because it's made by Monsanto."

FTFY

[Edited on September 10, 2015 at 9:14 PM. Reason : .]

9/10/2015 9:12:42 PM

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15929894

It's way more complicated than you lead on. I even allowed that many other pesticides are as bad or worse in organic.

I get most people don't know a poly vs mono saccharide or how sugar in coke is the same as fruit and making people look dumb is fun. However, you are attacking the lowest hanging fruit and the issues are way more complicated than you lead on. I say this with a 4.0 in biochemistry, it confuses me sometimes.

9/11/2015 2:42:00 AM

Bayer trying to buy Monsanto again, this time with the Monsanto board's approval. This can't be good. No way it passes the smell test with regulators.

http://money.cnn.com/2016/09/14/investing/monsanto-bayer-takeover-biggest-deal/index.html?iid=hp-toplead-dom

9/14/2016 8:08:28 AM

Headlines are already calling it a done deal. It's not. It's gonna go through Regulatory, and then some.

PS- Even the local radio guy can't get it right this morning. No, Monsanto does not make pesticides, they make herbicides. This is how misinformation continue to spread.

9/15/2016 11:28:44 PM

http://www.judiciary.senate.gov/meetings/consolidation-and-competition-in-the-us-seed-and-agrochemical-industry

9/20/2016 11:05:26 PM

So are you for or against such consolidation then?

9/21/2016 8:17:53 AM

Too soon to decide because other than reading some slanted news sources and personal communication at Mon (I am in the seed treatment group that could be affected), I have not read much beyond. In general, opinion on good or bad is 50/50, but not too many people want to talk about it’s too soon…just a lot of wait and see for now. On the surface, I think it is good for both companies. Depending on who you ask, there is or isn’t much overlap. From my perspective there isn’t. Mon’s chemistry portfolio is less than 5%, they are mainly Biotech and seed traits. We use other companies, like BASF and Bayer’s crop chemicals through cross licensing but there are just a few others in development right now.

I think it’ll be a cost cutting move, the whole Ag industry has been struggling. As Fraley said in the hearing, the budget for R&D is about 1B, and that is not much compared to other industries such as Pharma, which is like 10B. Increasing R&D money, the merging company can increase innovation, get products to farmers faster, blah blah blah. You can read the rebuttal against these points from the last 2 speakers in that link I posted. Transcript is available. The bottleneck is cost of registering a product and the mountain of requirements from the EPA after a product has been registered that gets ungodly expensive. Takes anywhere from 5 to 10 years to get a product to market. I am new to all this shit, so I am still learning and reading. But it has been interesting learning from the people who have been here 20-30 years. Oh and public perception vs reality once you work here is completely different.

9/21/2016 7:59:57 PM