Anyone interested in GMO Foods in our supermarket.

behillman, I have a hard time accepting that it's healthy for women with a baby on their backs applying chemicals by hand.

I do think it's healthier to garden than veg out with TV and chips.

Behillman, maybe I did not make that point well enough: I have no problem with women working in fields, I love working my garden or I would not be here. The women were carrying large bags of dangerous pesticides and other chemicals.. spreading with their bare hands, breathing an unhealthy cloud of dust. An enormous quantity of dangerous pesticides and chemicals polluting our dirt and water. The point: pesticides and chemicals are a more clear and present danger to people. GMOs are not perfect and should be used carefully, but there are real benefits too.

Could you please spell out the benefits of GMO using scientific evidence since that seems to be the gold standard here.

Dicamba is a type of 2,4-D. It will kill anything broadleaf. Fumes travel, depending on the type.

I'm not sure that there is any scientific evidence showing the benefits of GMO's - at least non that is available publicly. If such an article shows up, I would like to read it.

Those that produce GMO's have said they are safe. The USDA says there is no difference between non-GMO's and GMO's. As far as I can tell the only people who have done any testing, are the companies that produced the seeds.

Some foreign countries have done testing - but whose to say they are not following their own agenda. From what I have read, they thought GMO's were a bad idea.

Personally, I am not against the production of GMO's - I am concerned about the herbicides/pesticides/fungicides that are spread on agricultural crops in the millions of tons. This cannot be good for us, or the planet. I am also concerned that herbicides and in some cases insecticides are part of the plant itself.

Is anyone here concerned with the fact that every meal they eat contains, in one way or another, a pesticide/herbicide/fungicide? Would you purposely sprinkle these poisons on your food like salt? Do you think unborn children should be fed these agents? What about young children? Does it concern you that these poisons are in their food?

This planet is our only home. If WE don't take of it, who will?

Don't forget the millions of city residents that spread chemicals & commercial fertilizers on their lawns & gardens with no supervision. Then it is washed into our rivers so they can blame the farmers.

That's true CG. Maybe they should be required to fork over $200, take the class & pass the test to have an applicator's license like we are & have to endure the record keeping/spot checks & take the mandatory continuing education classes to 'maintain' it...

I also wonder how many of these yahoos have receive land steward awards from their respective states...

This message was edited Jun 10, 2013 8:22 PM

The front yard is lawn and three trees. During the seven years we've lived here we have never watered, fertilized or sprayed it with herbicides/pesticides/fungicides - and yet it lives!

Your city has 751,087 people. They are all not fertilizing or spraying.

We seem to be wandering off topic. No one doubts that homeowners are affecting streams with chemical herbicides and pesticides; it's just a question of limiting exposure wherever you can to minimize harm. But the topic was GMOs. I know that the FDA is testing as fast as it can to see whether other wheat crops are contaminated with unapproved GMO stock, but the damage to wheat farmers whose product is now being rejected abroad is enormous. I see they are suing Monsanto to try to recoup some of their losses.

Yes, money IS a major factor because farmers in Kansas and Washington State are apparently also having their wheat harvests rejected by foreign buyers due to fears that they too are contaminated with GMOs, so they're losing their shirts.

You're 'grasping at straws'... LOL!!!

??

Checked the wheat prices, basically the same now as one year ago. So who is losing their shirt. I know some farmers have a short crop from the adverse weather, but that has nothing to do with GMO.

No, apparently our wheat farmers sell a huge percentage of their wheat to buyers overseas; it's that market that they've lost until (and if) it turns out that this was just an isolated incident. Wheat prices here wouldn't change.

Put a number on that huge %.

Thanks, Honeybee. I didn't feel like tracking down the specific references but that's the kind of number I remember reading.

Just saw this; interesting study if you like science.

Abstract
A significant number of genetically modified (GM) crops have been approved to enter
human food and animal feed since 1996, including crops containing several GM genes
'stacked' into the one plant. We randomised and fed isowean pigs (N=168) either a mixed
GM soy and GM corn (maize) diet (N=84) or an equivalent non-GM diet (N=84) in a longterm toxicology study of 22.7 weeks (the normal lifespan of a commercial pig from
weaning to slaughter). Equal numbers of male and female pigs were present in each
group. The GM corn contained double and triple-stacked varieties. Feed intake, weight
gain, mortality and blood biochemistry were measured. Organ weights and pathology
were determined post-mortem. There were no differences between pigs fed the GM and
non-GM diets for feed intake, weight gain, mortality, and routine blood biochemistry
measurements. The GM diet was associated with gastric and uterine differences in pigs.
GM-fed pigs had uteri that were 25% heavier than non-GM fed pigs (p=0.025). GM-fed
pigs had a higher rate of severe stomach inflammation with a rate of 32% of GM-fed pigs
compared to 12% of non-GM-fed pigs (p=0.004). The severe stomach inflammation was
worse in GM-fed males compared to non-GM fed males by a factor of 4.0 (p=0.041), and
GM-fed females compared to non-GM fed females by a factor of 2.2 (p=0.034).

Full study here: http://gmojudycarman.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/The-Full-Paper.pdf

And that was less than six months of eating the GM soy and corn. What would happen with an animal that had a much longer lifespan and was fed GM soy and corn, I wonder.

You mean like humans? And what about humans who eat the pigs that ate the corn that was grown by the farmer who bought the seed from Monsanto. Sounds like a nursery rhyme but not a pleasant one!

Although GMO sweet corn has only just become available for the market, we've been eating GMO corn and soy and beet products for years as components of prepared foods.

GG,

Page 42:
"Mycotoxin analyses (Midwest Laboratories Inc, Omaha, Nebraska, US) showed 2.08 ppb
total aflatoxins and 3.0 ppm total fumonisins in a pooled sample of the GM feed and no
aflatoxins and 1.2 ppm total fumonisins in a pooled sample of the non-GM feed."

Aflatoxins are incredibly toxic and come from contaminated grain or peanuts.

I would have interpeted this as "the GM feed was unfortunately contaminated with toxic mold and invalidated the entire, expensive study". But then I didn't spend a lot of time and money setting the study up.

They explain:
"These levels are well below the USA and EU limits for mycotoxins in pig feed.
In addition, according to common industry practice, a mycotoxin
binding agent (200 mesh bentonite clay) was added to the diets of young pigs (Table 1)."

Well, alflatoxins are supposed to attack the liver more than the stomach (though high doses cause esophageal cancer, I know from college days).
I see limits for dogs at 100-300 ppb, so "2 ppb" may really be negligible. maybe that in itself does not invalidate the study. I'll go look up "fumonisins ".

Of course, it meant that Aspergillus flavus and A. parasiticus ("weedy molds" whose growth is favored by "high moisture content (at least 7%) and high temperature.") (source Wikipedia). Maybe the GM feed was stored badly in the piggery, despite all the care taken to keep other conditions equal.

These authers did well to specify that they easured the mycotoxins in "pooled samples". I know in peanut silos for human consumtpion, the sampling proceedure is (or was, in the 1970s) very lame, One sample was taken, and the whole silo could pass if that sample was clean. However, at least back then, they were allowed to DILUTE a barely failing silo with several silos that were passing by a wider margin. If a re-sample showed them passing, then the contaminate4d peanuts could still be sold (for human food). Bon apetit!

Most of the paper "smells" like authentic, careful science by conscientious scientists.

I wish they had added an equal amount of alflatoxin and fumonisins to the control group, to see if they also developed stomach inflamation or ulcers.
Or said, along with all the other cautions "both feeds were stored under equal conditions and inspoectedd t9be free from mold infestation".

And I wish they had stated "we considered the aflatoxin contamination to be ignorable and unimportant" in the abstract and the first paragraph.

Hmm, I thought the earlier part of the paper talked about ulcers and gross damage, but now I see:
"In this study, a diet of GM feed had no effect on stomach erosions or ulceration but had a
significant effect on inflammation."

So they only saw inflamation, not ulcers or even erosion. Maybe I should adopt their diet: I have esophageal erosion, and almost had an ulcer. But that doesn't invalidte the pig study either ...

Hmm, fumonisins come from molds in the genus Fusarium, so the GMO feed was contaminate by at least TWO kinds of fungus or mold. . And a lot of corn has SOME of this contamination, including that eaten by humans. Very very tentstively, I think the acute txoic levels are around 10^-5 or 10^-6, whereas 3 ppb is 3x10^-9. So tentatively and presumably, the fumonisin residue from mold contamination would not by itself kill pigs, by a concentration of a couple hundred. Unless eating the same moldy grain for your whole pig-life is worse for you than just a few moldy bags now and then.


THIS, however, I would DISagree with, based on what they admitted in their data section:
"The result is attributed to the difference in diet, since the presence of mycotoxins, possible confounders such as infectious diseases, animal
husbandry considerations or temporal, between-person, measurement and recording bias were controlled across the two groups."

No, the GMO group HAD two known kinds of mycotoxin contamination and the control group did not.

I wonder what other moldy contamination occured but was not measured for, and whether pigs typically get stomach irritation from eating moldy soy and corn?

I take this as an example of how hard it is to do long-term nutriition studies.

For example, 13-14% of both groups died during the study, which was "within expected rates for US commercial piggeries. ... due to usual commercial piggery-related matters and not to their diets. One out of 7 died, but the only difference they found was enlargement of one organ and inflamation in another. They DID see a difference, but they had to do a better set of autopsies than any of the papers they cite to find it.

it might be a great study that provided some evidence that (for example) the CRY proteinss may irritate mamalian guts UNLIKE prior thought on that subject, or it might have been a study where they noticed they had been feeding moldy soy and corn but had to finish the study and say "well THESE SPECIFIC mycotxins SHOULD not have caused severe, easily-noticed effects, and maybe there were no other relevant molds causing the stomach irritation ... and after spending all that money and time, we HAD to publish and state what we saw, but explain away the moldy feed."

I'll add my vote for personal courtesy, even though I had intended to stay out of this thread due to the consistant pattern of misrepresentation in literature pointed to by many as "scientific studdies" when they ranged from gross to moderate mis-representation (in one case, mis-representation of what WAS a good study, but which had conclusions nothing like what one professional scare-monger represened them as.

After the prior thread, I gave up on researchuing andd debunking passinate pseudo-science on the side of "be afaraid, be vary afraid". The consistency of the nonsense or seeming deceit made those just-not-worth-listening-to.

Too bad, because toxicology IS a difficult field when the effects are not near-term and blatent. The loud anti-GMO "propaganda" might be drowning out some vlaid but subtle and hard-to-prove science. But if a political group yells "wolf" loudly enoguh and frequently enough, no one will lusten if the say reasonably "this kind of study might start to suggest a moderate deleterious effect we SHOULD pay attentetion to".

(By my defination, any group that advocates public policy is a political group.)

P.S. Someone demanded "scientific proof" that GMOs

P.S. Someone demanded "scientific proof" that GMOs gave any real benefit, or words to that effect.

Obviously they allow you to use much less of the most toxic insecticides and herbicides. Glyphosate instead of chlorinated hydrocarbons, and organic Bt instead of organophosphates.

And there are experiments with GM varieties that are more drought-tolerant or that grow with lower requirements for fertilizer. I don't know if any of those are commercialized yet.

The fact that farmers pay more to get the GM seeds proves there are economic reasons.

Maybe the question was intended sarcastically, to make the point that "proving" things "scientifically" is not practical in a forum that does not expect to publish papers dozens of pages long, that can mostly only be critiqued fairly by someone with a PhD in relevant fields or the patience and ability to detect gross deceit.

I'll try to critique a study, but I'm bound to miss things or fixate on things that might realistically not be a big issue, like 2-3 ppb mycotoxins.

P.S. I forgot to mention that the "pig stomach inflamation" study used GM corn or soy that was 'triple-stacked" with GE genes. They used normal crossing techniques (not GE) to cross GM varieties with 3 different "imported" genes into one plant, to collect the GM fodder. I don't know how real-world that is, but it is a good way to increase a scientist's odds of getting some result that he CAN measure.

As usual, one study leads to 3 more.

Repeat the test with non-moldy GM feed, or equally-moldy non-GM feed.
Repeat the study with GM fodder containing only typical GE modifications, not the 'triple-stack".
repeast the study with only GM corn.
repeast the study with only GM soy.

Repeat the study with pigs fed diferent %s of GM and non-GM feed, but see if there is a CORRELATION between the maount of GM fodder and the obsevred effects (doese-effect study). Extrapolate those lines down to whatever the "normal comemrcial practice" is.

But time and funding are not infinite.

You might be able to do the last one "one the cheap", like a :"population study" by just recording how much GM corn or soy was in EVERY animal's feed. But you would still have to do the extra-craeful autopies they were so proud of..

P.S. It seems odd that the authors never compared their results to pigs fed a 'normal' diet. What is the 'normal' % of GM feed? Do "most" pigs have these stomach inflamations?

The authors of the study reported that the level of mycotoxins in the GM feed was well below accepted USA and EU limits; furthermore a mycotoxin binding agent was added to the diets to control for this. Other studies have reported stomach inflammation where GMO feed was utilized. Apparently the anomalies in uterine size were also noted in other studies using rats, which makes this a finding of serious concern.

At any rate, there are an increasing number of studies which suggest that classification of GMO foods as virtually identical to non-GMO products may not be substantiated by the data.

Here's another report that I just ran across: Syngenta faced criminal charges in a German court for falsifying information about the known toxicity of GMO corn it had sold to farmers for feed. The farmer who filed the suit lost all of his cows over a series of several years after they began showing intestinal damage, poor milk production, and other illnesses that resulted in his having to euthanize them.

http://cattleindustry.blogspot.com/2012/07/gm-bt-176-corn-killing-livestock.html

You're still grasping at straws.

Everybody knows that the internet is full of articles from anti-GMO hacks looking for either 'donations' or B.S. 'studies. Give it up already, no one cares about them, other than a few people here & others in la-la-land that feed on your shared irrational fears..

Sheesh... The guys cows probably died of old age & hard winters...

This message was edited Jun 12, 2013 4:19 PM

The FDA has approved genetically modified flu vaccine from insect cells!

http://www.naturalnews.com/039013_flu_vaccine_insect_virus_GMOs.html

I've never had a flu shot either, and I guess I won't be starting now!

Why don't we all stop beating a dead horse?

No one on either side will change their stance on GMO's, whether a market gardener, commercial crop farmer, or those small gardeners like myself who value our health.

Let he who is without sin cast the first stone...

I'm about to go our for a walk - will post you a few more photos later

From my 2008 garden - left to right - gooseberries, medlar, blueberries, pumpkins, painted lady runner beans.

Darius, some of this new stuff is interesting, though. Behillman, the thread-starter, asked about GMO foods in our supermarket so this seemed like a good place to post these developments. I wasn't familiar with the pig studies - were you?

Yankeecat, your garden looks gorgeous, but whether or not you or Honeybee or I have one is irrelevant to this discussion. Thanks for posting the pictures, though. They're inspirational!


This message was edited Jun 12, 2013 7:47 PM

From my garden in 2010 - left to right - saffron crocus, blackberries, thimbleberry, tomatoes, winter squash.