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Dangers of GM
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22-08-2014 9:00pm#1Has there been any scientifically proven dangers of genetically modified food and have they been proven to increase yields0
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Just off the cuff response. Yields are increased for sure with modified resistance to disease, parasites and environmental extremes.
Dangers: Human health, I think they are harmless except for sometimes introducing allergens to food, e.g. nut allergen to soy beans. I think health wise the reduction of herbicides/pesticides with GMOs is a good thing. Same goes for the environment.
That said I think their introduction should be regulated and monitored.0 -
So much fearmongering and misinformation around GMOs, so much of it is hugely unnecessary.0
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No, no no. No GM technology so far "works", rather it's experimentation for future use where it might. They are having terrible problems in countries where it's adopted with pigweed growing to six feet tall, crops failing completely, unexpected occurrences such as it working one year and failing the next, blindness being reported from the increasing amounts of pesticides that need to be sprayed to keep the ever more powerful weeds at bay, rapidly-evolving superweeds driving organic farmers out of the market, etc.
One of the key things to get across about GMOs is that unlike traditional pollution, which we've been foolish enough to allow into the world, GMO accidents or mistakes can never be wiped up. The DNA is self-replicated, hence you cannot mop it up or control it in any way. You can have almost unimaginably large oil spills off the Gulf of Mexico causing horrendous damage, but with time the earth can eventually repair itself. With the GMOs, there is no turning back until the end of time.
It used to be claimed that GMOs would not crosspollinate with wild types. However Ignacio Chapela has proven GM corn has been found as far away as in Mexico, multiple instances of it. Hence GM is getting out and crossing with wild types. This is a catastrophe of indescribable magnitude. Scientists do not have a clue about the fundamental blocks of life, it's just too complex, if they did they would just build the food from scratch themselves instead of literally forcibly infecting plants with genetic material and seeing what happens. Modifying food at the fundamental DNA level really spells disaster.
http://gmeducation.org
http://www.gmoseralini.org/en/
The Seralini study is notable because of the worldwide media attention it got and extraordinary backlash from Monsanto and the GM lobby.
Why anyone would take a sympathetic or apologetic view towards GM is beyond me. I really do not understand this perverse psychology.0 -
The Seralini study is a notable study demonstrating statistical fishing and the use of small skewed populations.
Seralini
The anti GMO lobby would be better served publicising sound research, surely there must be independent studies better than this to promote.
I understand the fear of scientists meddling at the fundamental DNA level but I think they do know what they are doing ie enhancing plants selectively and more rapidly than traditional methods. This is just an opinion in a heavily politicised topic and my opinion would change in a flash if provided evidence of real GMO dangers.0 -
You mean the same way we can’t control disease?paleoperson wrote: »The DNA is self-replicated, hence you cannot mop it up or control it in any way.
Why? Humans have been manipulating the DNA of plants and animals for thousands of years since the advent of farming – so when can we expect this catastrophe to strike?paleoperson wrote: »It used to be claimed that GMOs would not crosspollinate with wild types. However Ignacio Chapela has proven GM corn has been found as far away as in Mexico, multiple instances of it. Hence GM is getting out and crossing with wild types. This is a catastrophe of indescribable magnitude.
It’s not really. DNA only consists of four different nucleotides. You can build an infinite number of different sequences with those four bases, but the “fundamental blocks” as you call them, are pretty simple.paleoperson wrote: »Scientists do not have a clue about the fundamental blocks of life, it's just too complex…
You obviously missed this:paleoperson wrote: »… if they did they would just build the food from scratch themselves…
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-23576143
It also received a lot of criticism from scientists, hence it was retracted by the journal that originally published it.paleoperson wrote: »The Seralini study is notable because of the worldwide media attention it got and extraordinary backlash from Monsanto and the GM lobby.0 -
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The Seralini study is a notable study demonstrating statistical fishing and the use of small skewed populations.
Seralini
The anti GMO lobby would be better served publicising sound research, surely there must be independent studies better than this to promote.
I understand the fear of scientists meddling at the fundamental DNA level but I think they do know what they are doing ie enhancing plants selectively and more rapidly than traditional methods. This is just an opinion in a heavily politicised topic and my opinion would change in a flash if provided evidence of real GMO dangers.
What about golden rice I can see the positive benefits of it but have their been any studies showing possible negative outcomes0 -
You mean the same way we can’t control disease?
Yes, the same way we can't control disease.Why? Humans have been manipulating the DNA of plants and animals for thousands of years since the advent of farming – so when can we expect this catastrophe to strike?
Artificial selection isn't ideal, but it's similar to natural selection in many key ways. Artificial selection has limits. A dog will always be a dog. Dogs can't be bred too large, it would take hundreds of thousands or millions of years for that magnitude of change to happen. GMOs involve changing anything instantly. It's absurd to compare the two and is a stupid "argument".It’s not really. DNA only consists of four different nucleotides. You can build an infinite number of different sequences with those four bases, but the “fundamental blocks” as you call them, are pretty simple.
I'm talking about fundamental blocks that are larger than the four different nucelotides. Like when talking about complexity in a football match you wouldn't say "oh it's all elements from the periodic table anyway we're dealing with". Do you really think you're being smart or making some kind of point by saying such a thing.
I did not miss that. They are still obtaining the original food from an organism and growing it from there. But if they can make food this way then they won't need to infect natural food with GMOs at all and I support that.It also received a lot of criticism from scientists, hence it was retracted by the journal that originally published it.
A paper can't be retracted because it "received a lot of criticism from scientists", it can only be retracted if the scientific process was considered not to have been gone through in retrospect, or the results weren't considered authentic or it was found to be intentionally lying or extremely misleading. You could have a ridiculously flawed study, attacked from all angles, and discredited published that would not be retracted, especially for old studies - that's the scientific process. Many consider that political influences were at play here, the study was published in another journal.0 -
Eh, but we can control disease?paleoperson wrote: »Yes, the same way we can't control disease.
Somebody’s trying to engineer super-large dogs?paleoperson wrote: »A dog will always be a dog. Dogs can't be bred too large, it would take hundreds of thousands or millions of years for that magnitude of change to happen. GMOs involve changing anything instantly.
Do elaborate.paleoperson wrote: »I'm talking about fundamental blocks that are larger than the four different nucelotides.
So it’s ok to engineer cells, but not DNA? So where’s the cut-off point?paleoperson wrote: »I did not miss that. They are still obtaining the original food from an organism and growing it from there. But if they can make food this way then they won't need to infect natural food with GMOs at all and I support that.
The Séralini paper was withdrawn by the journal that published it after the scientific community claimed that the conclusions reached were not supported by the data presented. Following on from this criticism, the editors of the journal decided to retract the paperpaleoperson wrote: »A paper can't be retracted because it "received a lot of criticism from scientists", it can only be retracted if the scientific process was considered not to have been gone through in retrospect, or the results weren't considered authentic or it was found to be intentionally lying or extremely misleading.
I know, but it wasn’t peer-reviewed.paleoperson wrote: »Many consider that political influences were at play here, the study was published in another journal.0 -
IMO, GM itself is not the worst thing in the world , now for who owns controls ,markets and lobbys for, the seeds and their accompanying chemicals , now I start to get a bit concerned... Keep firing on the glyphosate , a bit more , a bit more ah shure it's harmless....
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2012/01/15/dr-don-huber-interview-part-2.aspxSlava ukraini 🇺🇦
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Markcheese wrote: »IMO, GM itself is not the worst thing in the world , now for who owns controls ,markets and lobbys for, the seeds and their accompanying chemicals , now I start to get a bit concerned... Keep firing on the glyphosate , a bit more , a bit more ah shure it's harmless....
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2012/01/15/dr-don-huber-interview-part-2.aspx
Sort but I don't accept anything from joseph mercola or gary null or natural news. Mercola is a fraud . An AIDs denialist and snake oil salesmen that has an axe to grind I prefer links to peer reviewed studies for evidence.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Mercola0 -
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Nothing inherently unhealthy about GM. You could debate the ethics of certain companies who hold patents on a large amount of techniques to genetically modify organisms, but this doesn't make GM itself bad. There are increasing amounts of philanthropic organisations developing new techniques of GM for free use in developing countries.
Like the anti-vaccine/creationist (non believers in evolution) crowds, the people who rally against it, don't understand it.0 -
carlowplayer wrote: »Sort but I don't accept anything from joseph mercola or gary null or natural news. Mercola is a fraud . An AIDs denialist and snake oil salesmen that has an axe to grind I prefer links to peer reviewed studies for evidence.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Mercola
Mercola is not an "aids denialist". Try not to exaggerate in a way that would be libelous in your attempts to smear the man.
I'm no great fan of Mercola, but he's certainly not a "fraud" and some of his articles are very good.
generic2012, you could not be more wrong, and it's disturbing that you would think that.0 -
paleoperson wrote: »Mercola is not an "aids denialist". Try not to exaggerate in a way that would be libelous in your attempts to smear the man.
I'm no great fan of Mercola, but he's certainly not a "fraud" and some of his articles are very good.
He's a quack.0 -
paleoperson wrote: »generic2012, you could not be more wrong, and it's disturbing that you would think that.
Which part of my post is wrong and could you correct it for me please?
Also a link to a peer reviewed article would be nice.
Please don't brush it off without a direct answer or non-sense about the peer review process/science in general.0 -
generic2012 wrote: »Which part of my post is wrong and could you correct it for me please?
Also a link to a peer reviewed article would be nice.
Please don't brush it off without a direct answer or non-sense about the peer review process/science in general.
I already fully answered and corrected your post.
You expect me to launch into scientific debate based on two or three broad sentences, what is this an examination?0 -
paleoperson wrote: »I already fully answered and corrected your post.
You're just after brushing it off without a direct answer.
You didn't fully answer or correct it, you said:paleoperson wrote: »generic2012, you could not be more wrong, and it's disturbing that you would think that.paleoperson wrote: »You expect me to launch into scientific debate based on two or three broad sentences, what is this an examination?
To be honest, I don't. If you had any grasp of science or what evidence means you wouldn't be making ridiculous comments about GM (or including 'paleo' in your username).
It's not an examination, I just think people who make non-sensical claims that retard progression, and is potentially quite harmful, without a shred of reputable evidence should be questioned on it.
There are posts like it all over boards. People make stupid comments, won't provide evidence to back it up, and then disregard other peoples' evidence that refutes their claims.
You're not going to retract your claims and your not going to provide evidence, you'll either quit posting on the thread or continue to brush off requests for evidence.0 -
What a load of crap.
I'm willing to engage in scientific discussion if you wish, you need to start with more than a series of generalized cliches.0 -
paleoperson wrote: »What a load of crap.
I'm willing to engage in scientific discussion if you wish, you need to start with more than a series of generalized cliches.
You obviously don't know what a cliché is, we'll start with - there is nothing inherently unhealthy about GM.
Would you agree or disagree? And if you disagree why?
And where you say;
'No GM technology so far "works", rather it's experimentation for future use where it might. They are having terrible problems in countries where it's adopted with pigweed growing to six feet tall, crops failing completely, unexpected occurrences such as it working one year and failing the next, blindness being reported from the increasing amounts of pesticides that need to be sprayed to keep the ever more powerful weeds at bay, rapidly-evolving superweeds driving organic farmers out of the market, etc.'
Maybe you could link an article on this and if these things did actually happen, how they could not happen with traditionally bred crops.0 -
So maybe you could address the points I raised in my last post?paleoperson wrote: »I'm willing to engage in scientific discussion...0 -
generic2012, it's not necessarily up to the person stating information/arguments to also provide the links to it. The other person should equally make an effort to find it. It's not like this is hard to find, these are the basic arguments of any debate about GMOs (except the ol' winging it on an internet forum style of debate). Effort has to come from both sides.generic2012 wrote: »You obviously don't know what a cliché is, we'll start with - there is nothing inherently unhealthy about GM.
Would you agree or disagree? And if you disagree why?
I don't know of anything that's inherently unhealthy about GM. A GM food can be anything, you could change one tiny piece of DNA and have a GMO. That doesn't mean it's okay to just go ahead and modify them. I believe there are many things inherently wrong with producing and planting GMOs... especially how they have the danger of making natural food extinct. If it makes wild types irreversibly extinct, would you then agree it's a bad thing?
Look generic 2012, today Monsanto are doing these things, when they build on the technology tomorrow the so-called rogue "biohackers" are going to be releasing things on a whim. Everyone for any reason, with a little technical know-how could produce self-replicating organisms. And it's not going to all be cool, not unless the technology somehow slows down or something happens to make it be treated like dealing with nuclear weaponry. Sometimes I wonder if the pro-GMO people are the most anti-science people of all - they appear to not believe the very science they are supporting.generic2012 wrote: »And where you say;
'No GM technology so far "works", rather it's experimentation for future use where it might. They are having terrible problems in countries where it's adopted with pigweed growing to six feet tall, crops failing completely, unexpected occurrences such as it working one year and failing the next, blindness being reported from the increasing amounts of pesticides that need to be sprayed to keep the ever more powerful weeds at bay, rapidly-evolving superweeds driving organic farmers out of the market, etc.'
Maybe you could link an article on this and if these things did actually happen, how they could not happen with traditionally bred crops.
http://boingboing.net/2013/03/29/do-gmos-yield-more-food-the-a.html
Note that this is why GM manufacturers (Monsanto) do not advertize higher yields. The only thing GM crops have ever genuinely done reliably so far is lessen the amount of pesticides that have to be used compared to conventional crops.
Just as the heavy use of antibiotics contributed to the rise of drug-resistant supergerms, American farmers’ near-ubiquitous use of the weedkiller Roundup has led to the rapid growth of tenacious new superweeds.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/04/business/energy-environment/04weed.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
This is well known btw, clearly even in the mainstream press so where have you been.
Bt cotton has failed admits Monsanto
As for the blindness claim... not about GM directly but related because it shows Monsanto's business practices. Farmers spraying large amounts of pesticides without protection in the old days caused many health problems including slight brain damage which was scientifically proven and borne out in French courts. It's supposed to be different nowadays, but in Argentina farmers were encouraged to spray heaps of roundup again and claim to have suffered complaints up to blindness. Admittedly this is the weakest claim I made above, the others are all watertight.
http://www.mintpressnews.com/argentinian-farmers-allege-monsanto-chemicals-poisoned-children/23922/
Here's more on roundup superweeds:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/09/20/us-monsanto-superweeds-idUSTRE78J3TN20110920So maybe you could address the points I raised in my last post?
I found your comments smart-alecy and not worthy of debate. For example where you say: "Somebody’s trying to engineer super-large dogs?", I have no idea where you got this from. If we can't communicate with each other maybe it's just best to leave it.0 -
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paleoperson wrote: »generic2012, it's not necessarily up to the person stating information/arguments to also provide the links to it. The other person should equally make an effort to find it. It's not like this is hard to find, these are the basic arguments of any debate about GMOs (except the ol' winging it on an internet forum style of debate). Effort has to come from both sides.
I don't know of anything that's inherently unhealthy about GM. A GM food can be anything, you could change one tiny piece of DNA and have a GMO. That doesn't mean it's okay to just go ahead and modify them. I believe there are many things inherently wrong with producing and planting GMOs... especially how they have the danger of making natural food extinct. If it makes wild types irreversibly extinct, would you then agree it's a bad thing?
Look generic 2012, today Monsanto are doing these things, when they build on the technology tomorrow the so-called rogue "biohackers" are going to be releasing things on a whim. Everyone for any reason, with a little technical know-how could produce self-replicating organisms. And it's not going to all be cool, not unless the technology somehow slows down or something happens to make it be treated like dealing with nuclear weaponry. Sometimes I wonder if the pro-GMO people are the most anti-science people of all - they appear to not believe the very science they are supporting.
http://boingboing.net/2013/03/29/do-gmos-yield-more-food-the-a.html
Note that this is why GM manufacturers (Monsanto) do not advertize higher yields. The only thing GM crops have ever genuinely done reliably so far is lessen the amount of pesticides that have to be used compared to conventional crops.
Just as the heavy use of antibiotics contributed to the rise of drug-resistant supergerms, American farmers’ near-ubiquitous use of the weedkiller Roundup has led to the rapid growth of tenacious new superweeds.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/04/business/energy-environment/04weed.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
This is well known btw, clearly even in the mainstream press so where have you been.
Bt cotton has failed admits Monsanto
As for the blindness claim... not about GM directly but related because it shows Monsanto's business practices. Farmers spraying large amounts of pesticides without protection in the old days caused many health problems including slight brain damage which was scientifically proven and borne out in French courts. It's supposed to be different nowadays, but in Argentina farmers were encouraged to spray heaps of roundup again and claim to have suffered complaints up to blindness. Admittedly this is the weakest claim I made above, the others are all watertight.
http://www.mintpressnews.com/argentinian-farmers-allege-monsanto-chemicals-poisoned-children/23922/
Here's more on roundup superweeds:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/09/20/us-monsanto-superweeds-idUSTRE78J3TN20110920
I found your comments smart-alecy and not worthy of debate. For example where you say: "Somebody’s trying to engineer super-large dogs?", I have no idea where you got this from. If we can't communicate with each other maybe it's just best to leave it.
What's you views on golden rice I praytell0 -
I find most of your comments nonsensical and not worthy of debate, but I replied none-the-less.paleoperson wrote: »I found your comments smart-alecy and not worthy of debate.
I also asked you direct questions.
For example, you appear to claim that we cannot control disease, which is obviously patent nonsense. I asked you to clarify.
I asked you to elaborate on what you referred to as “the fundamental blocks of life”, which are apparently larger than nucleotides. What exactly are these “fundamental blocks of life” of which you speak? They’re obviously smaller than cells, because you seem to be ok with scientists manipulating cells, but larger than nucleotides?
You’ve also made references to “natural food” and “wild types”. You’re aware that DNA mutations occur naturally all the time? Your DNA is mutating as we speak. There is no such thing as a “wild type” genome that remains constant over time.
You’re the one who brought dogs into the discussion. I have no idea why, hence my (admittedly somewhat facetious) question.paleoperson wrote: »For example where you say: "Somebody’s trying to engineer super-large dogs?", I have no idea where you got this from.0 -
paleoperson wrote: »generic2012, it's not necessarily up to the person stating information/arguments to also provide the links to it. The other person should equally make an effort to find it. It's not like this is hard to find, these are the basic arguments of any debate about GMOs (except the ol' winging it on an internet forum style of debate). Effort has to come from both sides.
The person making the claim has to back it up with evidence, you are saying GM is unhealthy but all evidence is contrary to that, the burden of proof is on you. Look up Russel's teapot - If I said there is a teapot orbiting Mars, is it right for me to expect you to prove there isn't? No, I should have to prove there is.paleoperson wrote: »I don't know of anything that's inherently unhealthy about GM. A GM food can be anything, you could change one tiny piece of DNA and have a GMO. That doesn't mean it's okay to just go ahead and modify them. I believe there are many things inherently wrong with producing and planting GMOs... especially how they have the danger of making natural food extinct. If it makes wild types irreversibly extinct, would you then agree it's a bad thing?
Look generic 2012, today Monsanto are doing these things, when they build on the technology tomorrow the so-called rogue "biohackers" are going to be releasing things on a whim. Everyone for any reason, with a little technical know-how could produce self-replicating organisms. And it's not going to all be cool, not unless the technology somehow slows down or something happens to make it be treated like dealing with nuclear weaponry. Sometimes I wonder if the pro-GMO people are the most anti-science people of all - they appear to not believe the very science they are supporting.
So you agree with me, there is nothing inherently unhealthy about GMO, and by your subsequent rant that had nothing to do with the point we were meant to debate, you also agree with me that the ethics of certain companies involved in the technology can be debated.paleoperson wrote: »Note that this is why GM manufacturers (Monsanto) do not advertize higher yields. The only thing GM crops have ever genuinely done reliably so far is lessen the amount of pesticides that have to be used compared to conventional crops.
So you're saying GM reduces pesticide use?paleoperson wrote: »Just as the heavy use of antibiotics contributed to the rise of drug-resistant supergerms, American farmers’ near-ubiquitous use of the weedkiller Roundup has led to the rapid growth of tenacious new superweeds.
So you're saying GM increases pesticide use?
In response to your claim that all GM does is reduce/increase pesticide use (as carlowplayer pointed out) Golden Rice has the potential to save 1.15 million people annually from direct and indirect vitamin A related deaths, and so far it is working.
In Ireland there is promising work being done on blight resistant potatoes. You may have heard of the Irish famine, which led to the death of 1 million people by blight riddled 'unGM' potatoes.
Planting of Bt cotton (Monsanto) in China reduced synthetic chemical use, increased beneficial organisms, decreased crop-damaging insects and reduced pesticide poisoning of farmers and their families.
In India Bt cotton (Monsanto) increased yields by 24%, profits by 50%, and raised living standards by 18%.
The list of success stories goes on.paleoperson wrote: »As for the blindness claim... not about GM directly but related because it shows Monsanto's business practices. Farmers spraying large amounts of pesticides without protection in the old days caused many health problems including slight brain damage which was scientifically proven and borne out in French courts. It's supposed to be different nowadays, but in Argentina farmers were encouraged to spray heaps of roundup again and claim to have suffered complaints up to blindness. Admittedly this is the weakest claim I made above, the others are all watertight.
So you're retracting the statement basically.
We were just meant to debate the effects of GM on health, which you only really confronted in one line - 'I don't know of anything that's inherently unhealthy about GM.' the rest was all irrelevant to the point had hand. But you've agreed that there is nothing unhealthy about GM.
Throw out a line yourself and I'll agree/disagree and give my reasons.
Just a suggestion but since the OP was asking about dangers and yield increases, and you've conceded that there are no dangers, in terms of health effects at least, perhaps yield increases would be a good point since we seem to disagree on that.0 -
carlowplayer wrote: »What's you views on golden rice I praytell
I'm completely against it.I find most of your comments nonsensical and not worthy of debate, but I replied none-the-less.
Don't in future then, I didn't ask you to.For example, you appear to claim that we cannot control disease, which is obviously patent nonsense. I asked you to clarify.
We cannot control all disease at all times. We can effectively contain some diseases sometimes.I asked you to elaborate on what you referred to as “the fundamental blocks of life”, which are apparently larger than nucleotides. What exactly are these “fundamental blocks of life” of which you speak? They’re obviously smaller than cells, because you seem to be ok with scientists manipulating cells, but larger than nucleotides?
Ever heard of a gene? I am talking about all nucleotide patterns greater than a few nucleotides, it's really not a difficult concept.
Your question is like: "so let me get this straight, you're asking me to imagine a number greater than 2 and less than five trillion?"You’ve also made references to “natural food” and “wild types”. You’re aware that DNA mutations occur naturally all the time? Your DNA is mutating as we speak. There is no such thing as a “wild type” genome that remains constant over time.
I never claimed that's what wild types or natural food means.generic2012 wrote: »The person making the claim has to back it up with evidence, you are saying GM is unhealthy but all evidence is contrary to that, the burden of proof is on you. Look up Russel's teapot - If I said there is a teapot orbiting Mars, is it right for me to expect you to prove there isn't? No, I should have to prove there is.
The fact that they can crosspollinate and irreversibly change everything forever is good enough reason why they should at least be proven to behave in some way like wild types.generic2012 wrote: »So you agree with me, there is nothing inherently unhealthy about GMO, and by your subsequent rant that had nothing to do with the point we were meant to debate, you also agree with me that the ethics of certain companies involved in the technology can be debated.
I don't remember what my "subsequent rant" was.generic2012 wrote: »So you're saying GM reduces pesticide use?
Yes, that is the only thing it's been known to do reliably. I could have added the clause that after a couple of generations it is likely to increase pesticide use, but did not find it necessary to add it there. I don't feel the need to always add a bunch of clauses after everything good I may say about GMOs. I trust in your ability to remember my main views without being reminded every 5 seconds and after every sentence.generic2012 wrote: »So you're saying GM increases pesticide use?
Hold on a second there please: that bit is in italics and there's a link directly after it. That is supposed to make it obvious that it's from the source I'm quoting. I didn't say that at all, that is from the source. They are claiming that use of GM eventually after a number of generations increases pesticide use.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-hard-look-at-3-myths-about-genetically-modified-crops/
There Scientific American clearly says that Roundup is producing superweeds. The superweeds also go to organic farms, don't you think Monsanto should be responsible for that since they're the ones that created them?generic2012 wrote: »In response to your claim that all GM does is reduce/increase pesticide use (as carlowplayer pointed out) Golden Rice has the potential to save 1.15 million people annually from direct and indirect vitamin A related deaths, and so far it is working.
It's all potential this or that. They could just give them vitamin A supplements with much better effect. Vitamin A is fat soluble so should last a long time. Even if it did save millions of people, it still wouldn't be right to release this on the planet. All humans die, these GMOs can spread forever.generic2012 wrote: »In Ireland there is promising work being done on blight resistant potatoes. You may have heard of the Irish famine, which led to the death of 1 million people by blight riddled 'unGM' potatoes.
Potatoes are in no danger at all.generic2012 wrote: »Planting of Bt cotton (Monsanto) in China reduced synthetic chemical use, increased beneficial organisms, decreased crop-damaging insects and reduced pesticide poisoning of farmers and their families.
In India Bt cotton (Monsanto) increased yields by 24%, profits by 50%, and raised living standards by 18%.
The list of success stories goes on.
And that's all they are... "stories".
Please note that even if GMO crops did work and save millions of people, I would STILL be against them because of the irreversible damage they're doing to the world. Humans live and die, the planet and ecosystem is forever.generic2012 wrote: »So you're retracting the statement basically.
I'll modify it to say: "farmers in Argentina claim to have endured terrible health problems including blindness, kidney failure etc. due to using Roundup in ways encouraged by Monsanto."generic2012 wrote: »We were just meant to debate the effects of GM on health, which you only really confronted in one line - 'I don't know of anything that's inherently unhealthy about GM.' the rest was all irrelevant to the point had hand. But you've agreed that there is nothing unhealthy about GM.
I'm glad we agree on that. I'm not here to start fights.
I would also agree some anti-GMO activists are in the habit of just contradicting whatever the GMO lobby is saying, rather than trying to work with them as best they can. And sometimes I cringe when I see some "organic movement" lady being pitted against a university professor with vested interests in GMOs on tv. The GMO lobby is very sophisticated.Throw out a line yourself and I'll agree/disagree and give my reasons.
Just a suggestion but since the OP was asking about dangers and yield increases, and you've conceded that there are no dangers, in terms of health effects at least, perhaps yield increases would be a good point since we seem to disagree on that.
In some ways it is not even relevant to my stance. I think that GMOs could eventually start to increase yields significantly over conventional crops. So I don't believe the anti-GMO people should have this as a central argument, because there's no reason why this would not happen, and where would they be then? To me whether GMOs increase yields substantially or not is almost a red herring, GMOs should not be allowed loose. fwiw though:
But in its report, the ERS researchers said over the first 15 years of commercial use, GMO seeds have not been shown to definitively increase yield potentials, and "in fact, the yields of herbicide-tolerant or insect-resistant seeds may be occasionally lower than the yields of conventional varieties," the ERS report states.
Several researchers have found "no significant differences" between the net returns to farmers who use GMO herbicide tolerant seeds and those who use non-GMO seeds, the report states.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/02/24/usda-gmo-report-idUSL1N0LT16M20140224
It's worth noting if only to show how much GMO proponents are liars. Monsanto also has large propaganda operations online. They employ people such as the Bivings Group and have been caught impersonating supposed authoritative people such as Anduro Smetacek and Mary Murphy, and continually pushing words like "like anti-vacciners" and "paranoia" on influencial sites like reddit. That's a big part of why you have so many people, especially younger people in America, who don't see the problems with GMOs and actually even think they know better than those who do.0 -
i could understand gmo with pesticides in them that could potentially infect wild plants and thus have a negative effect on benificial insect populations and even human health but golden rice just has the gene for producing vitamin A.How could that have a negative effect on the ecosystem other than more wild plants could be more nutritional.Also the use of vitamin a tablets isnt realistic as it expensive compared to GR which is given out in free licenses.0
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"There Scientific American clearly says that Roundup is producing superweeds. The superweeds also go to organic farms, don't you think Monsanto should be responsible for that since they're the ones that created them?"
From a purely agricultural point of view super weeds don't actually cause any problem on an organic farm-they're not resistant to hoes and non-chemical weed control ...
But from an economic point of view,not great if you're getting cross pollination on a seed/cereal crop as you'd lose your organic premium ...
IMO if there are to be penalties for theft/ unauthorised use of intellectual property,then there should also be penalties for intellectual "trespass"Slava ukraini 🇺🇦
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So all GMOs are dangerous and should be scrapped, eh?
Excluding agriculture, what about GMOs engineered specifically for bioremediation purposes, like trapping and reducing radiation in the environment?0 -
I've never heard of that technology in anything I ever read about GMOs or radiation and don't know how it would work. I have much less problem with GMOs that are kept within a lab and used to produce supplements for example than those planted in fields as food and interacting with the rest of the biosphere, and sooner or later crosspollinating. However even that type of GM can be implicated in things generally going wrong: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eosinophilia%E2%80%93myalgia_syndrome0
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paleoperson wrote: »I've never heard of that technology in anything I ever read about GMOs or radiation and don't know how it would work. I have much less problem with GMOs that are kept within a lab and used to produce supplements for example than those planted in fields as food and interacting with the rest of the biosphere, and sooner or later crosspollinating. However even that type of GM can be implicated in things generally going wrong: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eosinophilia%E2%80%93myalgia_syndrome
Then it's clear you're nowhere near the ground level of research that's going on in GMOs and are feeding off unsubstantiated and non-peer-reviewed nonsense and have very little practical knowledge of how these things work.paleoperson wrote: »Wow, they're making laptops without ethernet ports now?... god save us all.
Obviously the lack of wifi in trinity hall has nothing to do with the observable effects of wifi on living organisms including potentially carcinogenic ones.link to the carcinogenic impacts of WiFi pleasepaleoperson wrote: »If it matters to you find it yourself, it's not hard.
This sums up this 'discussion' perfectly. It's like trying to have a logical argument with the daily mail. Completely futile and not even remotely worth the energy.0 -
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"Then it's clear you're nowhere near the ground level of research that's going on in GMOs and are feeding off unsubstantiated and non-peer-reviewed nonsense and have very little practical knowledge of how these things work."
You do realize how childish and immature an argument that comes across as ??Slava ukraini 🇺🇦
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