My post on the how to keep Monsanto out of your home garden seems to have really hit a nerve with supporters of GM foods.
This morning, I received an email from the CEO/President of a large soybean seed company in the Midwest who writes:
I just read your article “The Four Steps Required To Keep Monsanto Out of Your Garden”. I favor choice when it comes to the food you eat and agree with you on that part . I do not agree that it is right to attack Monsanto and all the good work that they are doing to increase yields for farmers to keep the price of food low enough so the poorest of the poor can afford to eat. If we all had to eat organic many people in this world would starve due to the higher cost of food and lower production.
I respect your views but attacking Monsanto is not in the interest of poor people and world food production. GMO’s are not bad and have passed all the standards set by regulatory systems around the world and are proven safe. Thanks for listening.
My word for word email response?
Stop drinking the Kool-Aid my friend.
GMOs are far from “proven safe” as this CEO claims and the sob story that Monsanto is somehow helping the poor and starving people of the world is nothing but a PR stunt that while effective, has no basis in truth or reality.
As Mark Twain once said, “It is easier to fool people than to convince them they have been fooled.”
There are many highly capable and obviously intelligent people that have completely bought the scam that GMOs are safe and going to feed the world baloney.
Perhaps this most recent news out of Europe will give them a much need kick in the pants to wake them up to the reality of the situation.
Independent Experts Find GM Foods Contain Dangerous Gene
The European Union’s official, independent food watchdog group, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), is reporting that the approval process for GM crops failed to identify a poisonous gene discovered in 54 of 86 GM plants.
Most alarmingly, this viral gene known as “GENE VI” was discovered in the most widespread GM crops, notably corn and soy, which are heavily used in animal feed for livestock producing meat, milk, and eggs.
How did the viral gene get into the GM crops in the first place?
The problem starts right in the laboratory where GM foods are synthesized by an army of scientists playing God with millions of unsuspecting guinea pigs blithely buying unlabeled GM laced products at the supermarket.
These scientists insert foreign genes from other organisms (plant or animal) into a target plant using a technique which allows these foreign genes to “piggyback” on common soil or plant based viruses.
Assumption is the Mother of Error it seems as these scientists had expected that the virus genes transporting the foreign genes into the target plant would not be present once the GM plant was actually grown in the field.
The EFSA research (Independent Science News) has now conclusively shown that this major assumption upon which the supposed “safety” of GMOs is based is not the case.
Not. Even. Close.
How the presence of this viral gene could have been missed by the biotech companies, government regulators, and even university scientists is beyond comprehension.
The EFSA research indicated the following:
This situation represents a complete and catastrophic system failure.
There are clear indications that this viral gene might not be safe for human consumption. It also may disturb the normal functioning of crops, including their natural pest resistance.
A reasonable concern is that the protein produced by Gene VI might be a human toxin. This is a question that can only be answered by future experiments.
Dr. Julian Little, chairman of the Agricultural Biotechnology Council (ABC) which represents the biotech companies, had this to say in response:
... nearly three trillion meals containing GM ingredients have been eaten without a single substantiated case of ill-health. The combination of these two facts can give consumers a huge amount of confidence in the safety of GM crops.
I guess Dr. Little isn’t really paying attention to the skyrocketing cases of food allergies and digestive complaints in the past decade or so, particularly allergies to corn and soy, the top two GM crops.
It’s always easier to just continue with business as usual and hide behind PR campaigns focusing on starving children and fudged reports about the “safety” of frankenfoods when the corporate bottom line (and the McMansion mortgage payment) is at stake, isn’t it Mr. CEO?
Sarah, The Healthy Home Economist
Sources
Uncovered, the “toxic” gene hiding in GM crops: Revelation throws new doubt over the safety of foods
I am a 55 year old registered nurse. Four years ago I was diagnosed with gastroparesis. The etiology of this disorder in my case is unknown. I was dumbfounded by this diagnosis and it’s consequences. I was a perfectly healthy person who ate a healthy diet. Why has my stomach become paralyzed? I believe that it is because of the GMOs in my food. I do not take this lightly and will not take this sitting down. I am furious about this Montsano. Where are you now. I am not the only person on earth who this has happened to. I have always been proactive when it came to my health. Little did I know that I was being slowly poisoned by your company. My stomach has stopped working efficiently Montsano. So your GM plants are safe? I don’t believe it and will have to live the rest of my life with this painful condition that there is no cure for.Your experiment on me is over. I am going organic.
Great article, Sarah. I am in the process of writing my senator my view of GM foods. I am going to include the info here and try to get him to come around.
Great rebuttal! Maybe it would have also been beneficial to show how the people living on earth could live without GMO’s and not starve.
isn’t this a mite disingenuous?
“The viral gene (Gene VI) belongs to a plant virus (Cauliflower Mosaic virus) that cannot infect animals or humans and therefore presents no threat to human or animal health. This virus naturally infects many plants with no recorded health effects.”
http://sleuth4health.wordpress.com/2013/04/23/science-is-laughing-at-us/
Wait, what do you mean by disingenuous?
It’s true that we need to look at the science for sure. I’m not 100% convinced that GMO would be bad under all circumstances and all variants. But I get pretty pissed off with the non transparency and controversy of it all. I mean, wtf. If you have done studies on rats that lasted more than 3, 12, 18 months, then report them. Shine the light and let’s take a look. Let’s track the data long term on this (since we’re conducting an experiment without informed consent anyway).
Also worth noting — at least with Bt, I wish I could site the link, but there is definitely a difference in the metabolism and effect of Bt protein from the soil (naturally occuring) than when created in the corn itself. This shouldn’t be surprising, as we can’t currently place the gene precisely to my knowledge, which is why we use viruses as vectors. (If I’m off here, please let me know.)
Things are never black and white — wish I had a feeling that I could trust scientists and the gov to look out for our best interest in areas that are so inordinately complex and difficult to study.
” If you have done studies on rats that lasted more than 3, 12, 18 months, then report them.”
They have been done, and reported:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jonentine/2012/09/30/does-the-seralini-corn-study-fiasco-mark-a-turning-point-in-the-debate-over-gm-food/
“Seralini’s research is anomalous. Previous peer-reviewed rat feeding studies using the same products (NK603 and Roundup) have not found any negative food safety impacts. The Japanese Department of Environmental Health and Toxicology released a 52-week feeding study of GM soybeans in 2007, finding “no apparent adverse effect in rats.” Earlier this year, a team of scientists at the University of Nottingham School of Biosciences released a review of 12 long-term studies (up to two years) and 12 multi-generational studies (up to 5 generations) of GM foods, concluding there is no evidence of health hazards.”
those are two. you are right. have you read them? i couldn’t actually get the studies to see what was measured beyond organ weights, serum values of some things, etc. you only get answers to the question you ask. not saying they are flawed, but those are the questions i would ask. there ARE studies that indicate potential harm, increased inflammation, intestinal permeability, etc. What would be the rational response would be to understand why the studies are different, than to say it’s unequivocally safe.
my point is not so much that NO studies have been done, but by and large most studies are done by the companies themselves, who tend to hold on to their data, and more often than not they are NOT multigenerational. http://maurin.bnk.free.fr/Domingo%20et%20al.,%202011.pdf
the entire topic could use a dose of shut the f up and be real. if it’s safe, it will come out. if it’s not it will come out. no sense in hiding it. the seralini affair is a great example of the vitriolic behavior that is really uncalled for. he used the same rat strain monsanto did in their studies. could his sample size have been bigger, yes. is is discountable on that alone, no. it says more research should be done. and it needs to be standardized across groups, you have some context to put it in.
Actually those are 24. Two meta-analyses of 12 studies each.
RE: Seralini, it wasn’t just sample size, though that is extremely important. The way he ran the study with regards to feeding and animal care came into question also, especially with a strain of rat prone to tumors already. Without a controlled diet they’ll get sick regardless. His interpretation of the stats was dubious also.
The whole point of scientific studies is to neutralize as many variables as possible and come up with results that can be replicated. This recent study with the pigs (http://www.foodsafetynews.com/2013/06/study-says-gmo-feed-may-harm-pigs/#.UcqcCtzV9VW) didn’t control the varieties of the actual feedstock, just whether it was GM or non-GM. Again there are questions about their statistical conclusions and their care of the pigs during the study. I’m sensing a pattern.
There’s a reason scientists nitpick over these seemingly minor details in peer review and it’s not cognitive biases or vitriol. These studies need to be as objective as possible and when there’s all these poor practices weighing them down what should we really take from them? Especially when there are plenty of well reviewed studies coming to the opposite conclusion? Nothing if you ask me.
couldn’t agree more with the standardization and the need to be peer reviewed. you are also correct the variables on the food in the pig study on some things. you should also note, though, that all of the studies you mentioned are peer reviewed. peer review doesn’t mean much, anymore, unfortunatrely. you can see this in the gmo stuff and in many other places. which is a huge problem.,
have you read each and every study that i linked to in the meta analysis? you’re right to question, as I do myself. but please don’t suggest that this thing is black and white and a closed book. and please don’t suggest that just because some gmo may be safe, that they all are. also don’t assume that because this is hybridization taken to the extreme that it is natural. we have seen a huge uptike in gluten intolerance and celiac in the past 30-50 years, which correlates with alteration of wheat (gmo and breeding) to increase the gluten content.
you notice a trend — well, i notice a trend when monsanto spits out stuff like gmo being essential to feed the world, and lobbying to make themselves immune from liability. those types of responses are enough to make me question what the real story is. does that shut the book on it, no. but it’s a red flag.
not trying to start a flame war here. i guess the main point i have is that this is a systems biology issue, among others, with a $hit ton of variables to be looked at, and i don’t think it’s been looked at from that lens. oh yeah, and kill the media, on both sides.
BTW — have you actually read the 24 studies cited in that article, or the actual pig study? Or are you basing conclusions off of other people’s analysis? How many of the studies have you actually read and put skull sweat into?
I have to admit that I haven’t read into many of them, but curious if you have.
so, wait, in the pig study, are you suggesting that they should have been pastured vs cargill style? that might have been better to fully isolate, but it’s not really indicative of the stress that commerical pork is up against. (it does say though that if 60% of that style of pig end up with pneumonia due to the conditions, then i’ll take my pastured pork any day of the week). at any rate, you can’t point out things about animal husbandry unless you have a reason. here, the rates of pneumonia and other stuff is frankly on par with commercial pork. which is sad. but it’s true.
as for seralini, sample size was actually larger than monsanto uses, and it’s pretty tough to bitch about not having the data to look at the statistical methods, but when monsanto won’t do the same, you have the pot calling the kettle black. not to mention, you can’t cite animal cruelty issues here without a basis. it’s frankly made up if you don’t have a good reason, other than the fact of the results being something other than you want them to be.
it’s also worth noting, now that I have gone through your studies and several meta reviews, that while there have been a lot of 90 day studies on corn, there have been close to zero long term (seralini being one) . another exception may be the meta review you cited for which i can’t find the article for free. it’s possible there is something on corn over 90 days in there, but i doubt it. none existed as of 2011.
in answer to me earlier question, I’m guessing you’ve just cited headlines, as opposed to trying to determine for yourself.
as for me, there are enough “trends” that tell me to stay away — we do not need gmo to feed the world. gmo is predominately corn and soy. last i checked, there are huge markets for corn and soy derived products — yes, there must be so much of a shortage of corn and soy that companies have found ways to turn them into non-food, food additive, and anciallary revenue streams. most gmo corn and soy was not designed to be nutritionally safe, but to tolerate increasingly larger amounts of roundup and other pesticides. do NOT try to explain that round up is safe, either for the environment, or your health. since gmo for the time being tends to mean increased pesticides, you can’t count me out.
No I haven’t tried to analyse those studies because I’m not a scientist. There’s a reason we look to “peer review” and to other scientists replicating the data and not to some laymen to make a consensus on what the studies say.
I’m simply not qualified to make any judgement on the validity of those studies so I see what other experts in the field say about them instead, and those experts say they are solid and the evidence adds up to a conclusion that GM crops are safe for consumption. What else is there?
I probably shoudl let this go — but both the pork and seralini studies you are critical of were peer reviewed. one of seralini’s studies was in fact an attempt to replicate Monsanto’s own studies saying they were safe. (Monsanto’s internal studies for regulatory purposes is NOT peer reviewed, by the way, at least not in the sense that it would be publishable.)
it CAN get complicated, but you just have to apply critical thinking skills and see where things don’t add up. if the best that critics (and some of them laymen, not scientists) can come up with is sample size (which was larger than Monsanto’s) and animal treatment (may be an issue, may not be, but it’s grasping at straws to say it was an issue without evidence) then I think it warrants further inquiry and attempt to replicate. which, inadvertently, so do the French.
i get that you feel underquaified, but it just isn’t that hard. some will be over our heads for sure, but sometimes you can sense the bs. for instance, there was a study a while back implicated eggs as worse than cigarettes for heart disease, because of, gasp, cholesterol. it turns out that the data in the study showed that those who ate the most eggs according to their surveys had the lowest cholesterol. 75% of the american heart association and the media to boot was all over this peer reviewed study.
we simply leave stuff to headlines and supposed experts, especially those with an institutional and / or financial bias.
You forgot skewing of statistics, which is another big issue for both studies, and one where I am fundamentally lost with regards to knowledge. These kinds of things can slip through when unqualified individuals try to do something like review a scientific study and it’s why I refuse to do so when there are plenty of qualified individuals doing it already. There is no magic “believe in yourself and you can achieve anything” unless it involves trusting in myself to build a foundation of statistical interpretation and animal husbandry and then spend a few years building experience in those fields. Maybe some day.
Regarding industrial biases, Seralini’s research was privately funded by anti-GM orgs while there are a plethora of studies that are publicly funded both in Europe and America that have come to opposite conclusions. Who has the bias?
Starving children? Monsanto doesn’t give a flying fig about starving children. But they certainly don’t mind poisoning them.
I really do not buy the “feed the poor” line. I live in an impoverish area of WI. My family is well below the poverty line and takes advantage of programs that the government provides for families like ours. I use my food stamps to purchase organic fruit and veggies, pasture-raised/ grass-fed meats, and other whole untainted foods. I grow my own veggies during the summer months and readily take advantage of the farmers markets. I am not going to poison my family simply because we are poor. People don’t need cheaper, easier food – they need to be educated on what real food looks like and how to responsibly feeds themselves and their families. If real foods became the mainstream, they would become more affordable.
The base truth is that many many cultures won’t eat the seeds produced by Monsanto and others. They don’t know what to DO with them!!!! Indigenous “poor” cultures have their own foodways and don’t want foreign seeds as food!
I have a friend who works with a very large world food organization and he sees this all the time.
Your response was perfect! Well said Sarah!