Consumers still have power. We can still influence not only the Market, but our neighbors, as well. This blog is just too important to just read along. Monsanto has long been a pariah on our planet, peddling destruction for decades. This company and others like them are responsible for years of propaganda that gave us DDT to use in our backyards and still the "educated" can sound so ignorant. How bad does it have to get? Real nutrition comes from real food! Period. The answer to feeding the masses isn't mass production! I raised my children at the poverty level here in the NW and still managed to provide an OG diet most of the time. We just didn't have 150 channels! And now I have a son in mgmt. for Yahoo! who says he loved his childhood. Hey, we must walk the walk and speak the truth and if we get emotional, which I do, do it with love and compassion. It's taken me 20yrs. to get the rest of my family to see the purpose of recycling. Thank you for being so honest and caring here. The GMO thing sucks the life right out of the food cycle.

That's the worst part, I know. It's difficult and often unaffordable for many people to get food that isn't poisoned.

It's one reason why political action is so important. Until the system changes to make it easier to get wholesome food no matter where you live, we'll keep running into these class barriers where lower income families or people who live in food desert areas simply can't get the sort of food they'd like to give their families.

Where are the independent human safety trials? Where are the independent animal safety trials?

Saying that people and animals have eaten tons of this stuff isn't a safety trial and you know it. Women were being given hormone replacement therapy for decades before a clinical trial finally revealed that it was deadly dangerous - so dangerous that they stopped the trial immediately as soon as statistical analysis revealed an unmistakable uptick in seemingly unrelated illnesses and deaths.

Over the same period these untested foods have gone into our shopping carts, incidences of cancer and cardiovascular disease have gone up along with obesity. Are they clear of responsibility? Are they partly at fault? Do they react badly in the presence of certain pesticides?

Nobody knows. And if they do, they aren't telling.

Stop lying to people and claiming things are safe when the fact of the matter is that your biotech companies are performing a no-net experiment on all of us and resists even labeling these products so consumers could have a real choice.

Also this study quoted in one of your 'info' pages, which contain a long list of fancy sounding titles that mostly don't seem to be what you're saying they are ...

Ewen SWB, Pusztai A (1999) Effect of diets containing genetically modified potatoes expressing Galanthus Nivalis Lectin on rat small intestine. Lancet 354:1353-1355

... is a study that's either used by anti-biotech advocates to claim that your products are unhealthful, or lambasted by your supporters as poor science. The scientists themselves didn't believe that the GM products examined were safe.

Which is to say that whatever you believe is true about that peer-reviewed Lancet study, it in no way bolsters your case.

If I can find an error like that in five minutes of looking through your 'mythbusting' web brochure, what other mistakes and outright lies are in there?

Oh right, you probably don't know. You're likely just some PR guy whose unfortunate lot in life is to have a day job shilling biotech, which beats unemployment or the pathetic paycheck of an actual blogger. I empathize, but sod off. Because I don't empathize all that much.

Does anyone know more about the AAEM?  I am curious to find out more about their study.  It seems there's more than enough scrutiny to go around...

Natasha,

As pointed out by multiple people in the past, it seems your first and last defense against anybody who disagrees with you is to name-call and insult, and rarely, if ever, provide any factual evidence to disprove them.

Is it too much to ask that an intelligent, civil conversation can be had on these boards? Can you behave like a responsible moderator rather than an angry 5 year old?

I apologise for that last comment, as now I am the one name-calling.

The rest of my point still stands.

Greg, I just don't get paid enough to be a doormat WalMart greeter for corporate shills and people who call me a bigot or a murderer just because when I go to dinner tonight, I'm going to eat chicken. Indeed, I don't know if I could be paid enough.

I know y'all hate me, and I mostly consider it a badge of honor.

As to facts, why don't you go click on Aaron's links, observe that the study I pointed out is listed (and if they took it out, I have a screenshot.) Then do enough reading to discover that my point about its inclusion in a list of studies (many others of which are either op-eds or chemical equivalency studies instead of safety studies) that purport to be about GMO safety is either a misrepresentation or a piece of inferior scientific work - either way, it doesn't bolster the case at hand.

Further, do consider reading up on the hormone replacement therapy issue. Which is a real thing that happened, Google is your friend. Something that was thought to be safe for years was proved to be so dangerous in a fully controlled clinical trial that the trial was immediately stopped. And this was the replacement of bioidentical hormones - not the introduction of some chemical that's never been in the human food supply before.

If you want to consider Bt, a common toxin inserted in GM crops, it's true that it's used in organic agriculture. It's sprayed on well before harvest and either breaks down by then or is readily washed off. In GM products, the plant produces Bt throughout its tissue.

Have there been thorough trials of the safety effects of this? Does it sound like a good idea to you to eat a lot of this Bt stuff without a proper safety trial? Would it make you a little more worried to eat it if you knew that it's been linked to allergic skin reactions:

http://www.organicconsumers.org/ge/illness060426.cfm

But it probably wouldn't. The only other time you've bothered to comment here was on a post about pesticides, where you rushed to criticize organics in a post that was about the health hazards of these toxic chemicals.

You steadfastly refuse to be interested in a precautionary regard towards public health and safety, but I'm the one that's childish. Hmm.

While it's become fashionable to assert in 'moderate' political circles that the true measure of an adult is their inability to be agitated by anything, I would hold that those who are reckless with others' well-being and uncaring of anything but where their next meal is coming from are the ones who need to do some introspection.

I am more than familiar with the WAGER web page aaron keeps nudging folks to, R Wager is a right pain on every GM post on OPED news, maybe, aaron is a student? I suspect the uni is well funded by one of the biotechs, he is amazingly persistent in putting the same trials up eveytime.
However,
Germany has Banned the growing of Mon810:-),and Monsanto tried to FORCE them to allow it to be grown..hmm a company ??suing a government to grow a crop they decided has enough doubt about to halt??
the great news is the courts upheld Germanys people to say NO!
The GM Corn crops in Africa failed miserably this year, Monsanto generously? reimbursed the farmers, mad a big thing of how good they were..yeah, but all the people that worked there, and the people who would have had local priced food are now without food, and will have to be buying imported,..a glimmer of light is that the import may NOT be GM if? they are lucky!
roberts, and i guess aaron fave page to guilt trip is how we are all keeping children going blind cos we stopped "golden rice" hmm 20 years and it is still a dud! for 4c a year, yup! 2x vitamin A capsules at 2c each! would stop blindness in those same people, how many MILLIONS?? if not billions have been utterly wasted, by the goldcrud mob?
golden corn:-) is the newset joke, they say..that they plant to adjust..about 5 genes. well just adjusting for RR or TT sacrifices hardiness/ yield.
Added genes tend to detract from ones normally in the plant.
ALL GM plants are highly chem fertilizer dependent, pretty stupid for a world with limited phosphate supplies, and bad issues with nitrate run off creating dead zones etc.
And one handy little FACT, I went and checked the unis staff, yes R Wager does work there, HOWEVER he is NOT anyone with a credential as he and his friend Aaron are suggesting makes other people inept uninformed or plain silly public!
He is listed as Biology staff, thats it, just staff!
He is no more "special" than any of us, he however implies he is.
you will find his replies everytime  to "amicus curiae" (self) Raday Ananda, and Barbara Peterson. on Oped news if you care to browse:-)

A right pain, hmm.  I am well trained in the science with two degrees and twenty five years experience, about twenty published articles, a tad more knowledgable than the average person on the street.  Personal attacks do nothing to counter the accurate science I put forward. 

It is truly amazing that after all the tests (not scientifically defendable) that had to be done (and called for by critics of the technology) and Golden Rice is near being given away to a billion people to alleviate Vitamin A difficiency related disease and death and Amicus now says why did it take so long?  The hypocracy is thick!  I suggest people go to Goldenrice.org to read the real story.

Cheers

It could be that the persons name is Jeffery...not Jennifer. I have seen the doc, Seeds of Deception and there are many troubling points that are made, but the most troubling is the simple fact...there is NO research to show what the long term effect of ingesting these Genetically Modified Organisms will do to the human body over a period of years. We are in fact no more than lab rats to the corporate structure that have released these ' Franken' seeds on the world. With cross pollination there is a great chance that there will be no...really... NO organic plants left in a matter of a few years. Then we will not have a choice. Agribusiness will have succeeded in altering our food supply permanently. If you believe that what you can't see won't affect you...dream on.

I (finally!) found some information on the American Academy of Environmental Medicine.  http://www.quackwatch.org/04ConsumerEducation/nonrecorg.html

At the least it seems safe to say that AAEM is not a mainstream organization promoting the treatment of multiple chemical sensitivity (MCS).  The diagnosis of MCS seems not to be recognized by major health bodies incluidng the WHO, or the AMA.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_Chemical_Sensitivity

The website below discusses the MCS issue.  I have no take on it whatsoever.

http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/mcs.html

If anyone finds additional information on this group please let me know.  Until then I think it is reasonable to doubt their credibility.

Although Stephen Barrett (operator of quackwatch) reports with pride his own achievements (http://www.quackwatch.org/10Bio/bio.html), he is probably the best known de-licensed MD, and was already called biased and unworthy of credibility by a US judge. If you want to learn more about Barrett, see this (http://www.humanticsfoundation.com/quackwatchwatch.htm), or google "credibility Stephen Barrett", you'll find more than enough.

In the meantime, AAEM has been known by the Ameriocna government's Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services as a reliable and credible source of information : http://www.health.gov/nhic/NHICScripts/Entry.cfm?HRCode=HR1988

I myself looked into AAEM's credibility and was glad to find it was a serious organozation. Much more than any of Barrett's initiatives.

Thanks for providing an alternative view on the AAEM.  I checked the National Health Information Center site you suggest, and found "[Inclusion of an information resource in this database does not imply endorsement by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.]"   So, I am not convinced on your claim that the USG considers information from the AAEM reliable/credible. 

I had a hard time following the arguments on the humantics foundation site.  The formatting is strange.  But, I am glad you brought the site to our attention.  Barrett Sounds like a controversial guy himself.

I still remain skeptical about the organization.  Let's see if any of the major health organizations pick up their recommendation.

Dear Aaron,

You are right about the humantics foundation site. Hard to know what is what. I used them as an example but would have been better off using another one. Try this one : a html COPY of the original Court document signed by Judge Fromholz (http://www.bolenreport.net/archives/california_superior_court_judge_.htm).

Now, as your hope (or maybe this is not the appropriate word although it's certainly the one I would use to express my opinion) that any major health organizations pick up their recommendation, it would be of a great surprise that it happens. Unless these health organizations are solidly established and have nothig to lose, mainly from the govenmental authorities standpoint, it just wont happen. The one I could see doing such a thing is PCRM (www.pcrm.org).  

Regards,

Jef

The National Health Information Center (NHIC) cannot obviously endorse everything from every organization. However, NHIC can position themselves as a health information referral service, which is exactly what they claim to be. "NHIC puts health professionals and consumers who have health questions in touch with those organizations that are best able to provide answers. NHIC also provides key support for the healthfinder.gov Web site, your gateway to reliable consumer health information." (http://www.health.gov/nhic/).

I'm not afraid of genes, Kristin, but these products haven't been tested and haven't provided the benefits they've been claimed to provide.

Independent research into their safety is squelched, at least one of these companies explicitly forbids any outside research on their products, the companies have insisted on the right to search farms without warrants, have harrassed and bankrupted people who resisted their product rollouts or tried to save seed. In addition, as you note, they put farmers in a terrible long term debt bind.

I find this behavior thuggish and deeply suspicious. It isn't the pattern of people who wish only good to the world and have nothing to hide.

well to be fair, they do often provide the benefits they claim, or else they wouldn't sell - higher yield, better pest and disease resistance, uniformity, etc... i agree that this is just one more example of corporate thuggery, but i think it's important to keep the facts straight and continue to look at things objectively or else you don't do yourself any favors.

Actually, I would be interested in seeing independent studies that show GE crops have a higher yield, need less pesticides/herbicides, provide the same or higher nutrition etc. All the studies I've ever read show the opposite. These life science corporations own the seed, the farm(ers), the chemicals, the grocery shelves (and the pharmaceuticals to make you feel better when you get sick). Corporate thuggery - seems appropriate! And - why is Europe (the people) so vehemently against GE foods?

oh, by the way, these corporations that bring us GE foods - they happen to be the same ones that brought us DDT, agent orange, PCBs & glyphosphate - all touted as perfectly safe..... The 'World According to Monsanto' is a nice film on the history of the #1 producer of GE seeds.

Eveline
I would be happy to direct you to studies that do exactly that.  My website is a good portal and I have many more links for the asking.

Cheers

Sorry, but there are too many of the wrong kind of spelling errors in your statement for you to have any credibility.

I should try to have a coffee first.  Now about the sustainable nature of agricultural biotechnology.  There is a great deal of evidence that this technology can and does help reduce environmental impact of agriculture.  GM crops are neither a panacea nor a danger to us or the environment.  Care to discuss the science?

Hi Rpbert,well you may be PAID by the uni, BUT? who is funding the uni? and specifically the Ag department I wonder:-) So many of the supposed"centres of education" are"sponsored" by big agri, which means only the Mainline company lines are touted, and ANY evidence of problems is discredited and supressed,.
The students and faculty that found out that the GM Corn was a problem, and were told that they couldn,t publish, would loose tenure etc if they did?are one of many!
Reduced environmental impact?
Well -No Till was jumped on fast as a way to pretend to be clean n green and caring..however left soil stubble not ploughed in , harbours the pests that then require chemicals to control, corn borer in particular -though others too.
So it creates a need, clever.
It also creates HardPan soil areas that allow little moisture ingress past the top few inches, and make it hard for any biota that survives the chemical and chem fertilizer, to be active, ie earthworms and dung beetles.
The heavy applications of synth fertilizers are what keeps the plants growing, Not a healthy Deep root system.
Gm plants are weaker and less hardy, as everytime you put a "trait" in you loose vigour that was naturally there.
Countering MIS INFO is what the sites like this and others are trying to do, the Company Mis info, Robert!
We all hear and see enough of it in mainstream, why? you need to push it on sites where people care about the non company view, is annoying.
Most of us are well read, and can actually think for ourselves. And make our own free decisions as to how we feel about it.
Luckily the Corps. haven,t yet,managed,( but they are trying,) to suppress the net and free speech. FOX story on RBGH is a classic example of the old boys network in action!
Monsanto makes NOTHING! that reduces environmental impact.au contraire! every product they make damages biota soil and water, and the plants they"make" damage any species they can outcross and contaminate.
They breed plants that have increased the fertilizer use way beyond natural volumes, and have contibuted to the depletion of phosphate world wide, in the areas it is mined from, but managed to encourage so much use it is now polluting the soil and waters it runs off into, along with the nitrates.
As to me hiding? get off the grass. I am simply a person who has done 18years permaculture and organic growing for my own food, has recently learnt to assist a beekeeper, and become aware in that area of even more damage that the Agri mob have created. My beekeeper mentor from his pocket, bought euipment to study bees and pollen, I am lucky enough to be the person he asked to also do soil analysis, and water and Co2 readings.
I film live(if i can find them in chem soils) biota, and show the farmers just how inert they are after sprays are used, and how long it takes to recover.

no great drama, no big funds, a good scope and some pc power. I get paid, occasionally,  for what I do, it is for concern more than cash I do it.
It is my personal anger at what is being done to our food by Big Agri, CAFO, and crooked politicians both in the USA and now it appears here also, that has me angry enough to get active and vocal, to try and wake folks up.
?? what organic consumers research to make a product??? Organic is about" NOT product", by utilising on farm waste efficiently. you know, compost and mulch:-) maybe some granite rock dust for minerals.
If there is a product made that does keep organic principles like bio 500 , well and good. It, at least DOES NO HARM!
oh and re golden rice. ha! they give it royalty free, sure, but the really POOR have no land to grow it on, they are the ones that would Still! be buying it from a grower, who by the way, should his sales reach 10,000(rupees?) then has to pay royalties!
the poor have no money to buy it, and the volume they would need to eat is ridiculous.

Sorry no smoking gun on funding.  My university is supported by the Privincial Government and tuition fees (an exceeding small amount comes from the private sector and none from big ag.

I am highly doubtful of the so called tenure threat, any links to the facts?

There is no such thing as impact free agriculture.  All food production has an effect on the land.  reduced or zero tillage has greatly reduced soil erosion and ground water contamination and CO2 emissions.  Everyone should be cheering these advances.

"Gm plants are weaker and less hardy, as everytime you put a "trait" in you loose vigour that was naturally there."

There is no evidence for such a statement.  However ALL cultivars, (no such thing as natural) whether made by cross breeding, ionizing radiation, somaclonal variation, embryo rescue, chemical mutagenesis or GM do not compete with wild plants over time.  There is a great paper by Crawley et al in the UK where they planted four different GM crops and left them to see how they competed, every one was over run and out competed by native plants within a few years.

It is a shame you find accurate scientific information about GM crops annoying.  There is little doubt this technology will be a major part of the worlds future.  I post because of the misinformation that is rampant on the internet.  A perfect example is so-called terminator technology.  To suggest it can spread its sterile nature is equivilent to saying a women without ovaries will produce sterile children.  Nonsense.

More fertilizer use has fed the 6+ billion people.  To say othewise is pure ignorance of how global agriculture works.

Organic agriculture also impacts the environment as products like rotenone , pyrethrum ans ryania are all deadly to bees, high-tillage weed control leads to greater soil erosion and CO2 emissions and copper compounds for fun gus control are some of the nastiest imputs period.  The widesread use of ladybugs in North America have all but wiped out the native species.  the largest negative about organic agriculture is land use. A!30% yield drag for organic crops far more land must be used to produce the same amount of food as conventional agriculture and there is NO debate agriculture is by far the createst threat to natural biodiversity. |I could go on for hours but the point is ALL agriculutre has impact. 

Sorry $10,000 US not ruppees, far higher than the two billion people who will benefit from this product could ever hope to earn.

Cheers 

ok lets start here, and tenure isnt specifically mentioned, however, pull the pin on the research, there goes the job! or the equipment , the scholarship ..
Crop Scientists Say Biotechnology Seed Companies Are Thwarting Research - NYTimes.com
bear in mind too, some of these guys Like GM, yet they still aren,t allowed to do research, which, IF? the products was..good/safe? should NOT be an issue
re ladybirds, I remember this line from oped:-) uh huh they imported them, why? did the natural ones disappear I wonder? along with mantises, and dragonflies etc, all the Natural Predators in fact, all took a hiding from the DDT (Silent Spring) days as I remember. and the bees and the bats that also eat insects are dying in massive numbers in USA, Coincidence blame a fungus, blame varroa, doesnt wash a jot! as both the fungus and varroa have been round long before GM plants were, and bees and bats didn,t drop like they now are.

Organic yield drag...B/S! see here! the Organic produces consistently, maybe lower, but masses less chemical and fertilizer input, and all up not that much lower, take away the fertilizer and GM is stuffed.and systems like SRI are maximising yields, naturally, using less water, less seed)
http://farmwars.info
there is a lot of data around to say Organic acre for acre produces more, the difference is Diversity of yield, not monocropped. variety and nutrition, not just huge harvests, of one crop that encourages weeds and pests, rather a mixed and nutritious blend..
What comes first the food, or the Industrial complex??
Monocrops are only good for the mass maw of Hi volume mechanised industrial food companies. the farm and the consumer figure little.

{Gm plants are weaker and less hardy, as everytime you put a "trait" in you loose vigour that was naturally there."}

from the Australian wheat trials at Horsham and Riverlands Aus.
60.        In addition, in the unlikely instance where the plants may have enhanced tolerances to several environmental stresses,( NOTE! this is FROM a trial to develop exactly that...HUH?) the GM plants will most likely be less fit as compared to other commercially available wheat varieties because of the potential metabolic/physiological burdens (eg as discussed in Pretty 2001). For example, the wheat may have stunted growth, produce less seeds, and have a decreased ability to tolerate competition from other plants.

and the same report again.

50.        Several commercial cultivars with tolerance to drought are already available in Australia. For example, the variety Gladius, released by Australian Grain Technologies in February 2007, produces yields 20-30% higher than the benchmark variety Yitpi, which may be grown as a non-GM variety during the proposed trial (Wheeler 2007). Wyalkatchem, which may also be grown during the proposed trial, is another variety that performs well under low rainfall conditions. The GM wheat lines in the proposed release were derived from the wheat cultivar Bobwhite 26, which is considered to be of lower quality than most commercial cultivars (Bhalla et al. 2006). The GM wheat lines are therefore unlikely to be more competitive than existing elite varieties, even if an increase in drought tolerance is achieved.

Rotenone Quassia and Natural not synthetic pyrethrums would be sparingly used due to cost and rarity, which is a good thing, Natural BT not the synthetic in Bt Gm, also was only used WHEN needed , not a- life of the plant, in every cell form, so bugs did NOT become resistant, now they are!!
Coppersulphate in tiny dosages per acre, is in most soils not detrimental it is an organic and assimilable form.MILK worke very well for downy mildew. copper is a last resort, not a first!

More fertilizer, aka green revolution misled people into thinking they could feed and breed to excess, and I INCLUDE the first world, in that category!
As to promised yields, and proof? well not much proof it appears. to others apart from robert , who decries the info here..see The Union of Concerned Scientists report.
"failure to yield" a very enlightening 51 page PDF

{There is a great paper by Crawley et al in the UK where they planted four different GM crops and left them to see how they competed, every one was over run and out competed by native plants within a few years.}
so??? if this is the case HOW THE HELL??? can monsanto and others claim a stable plant??? and PVR rights???
Brad Mitchell himself wrote that the plants LOST! their vigour, after a few plantings..what else got lost/ rearranged by nature I wonder?
another reason to have no one able to save seeds?? so we cannot find out what Devils Kitchen got brewed up??

It is IN accurate doctored science i find so distasteful Robert, and so many reports are doctored removed and cherrypicked for a good slant, due to financial concerns- not for honesty!