GMO video by Potholer54

[tupac chopra]

Oh for crying out loud.
The study in question was retracted by the journal that published it.
Saying "It wasn't a cancer study" doesn't make any of your points more compelling.

Of course it does. How can you retract a toxicology study on the basis it was inconclusive about tumors??

Toxicology studies aren't about tumors. Tumors are studied under a carcinogenic study

 

[bilby]

Of course there is hint more research might be needed. Though after digging your heels in this far I don't expect you'll ever admit that.

That is definitely a hint something might be amiss

“In females, all treated groups died two to three times more than controls, and more rapidly. This difference was visible in three male groups fed GMOs. All results were hormone and sex dependent, and the pathological profiles were comparable. Females developed large mammary tumors almost always more often than and before controls; the pituitary was the second-most disabled organ; the sex hormonal balance was modified by GMO and Roundup treatments. In treated males, liver congestions and necrosis were 2.5–5.5 times higher. This pathology was confirmed by optic and transmission electron microscopy. Marked and severe kidney nephropathies were also generally 1.3–2.3 greater. Males presented 4 times more large palpable tumors than controls…”.

And remember this is the same sort of organ damage seen in a previous toxicology study. You of course ignore this point.

It is irrelevant; there is nothing here that would not be reasonably expected to happen in one of the two groups, even if both groups had been fed the control diet. You really don't seem to be able to grasp that if a result could easily occur by pure random chance, then that result does not tell you ANYTHING.

I am not ignoring your point; I am telling you that your point doesn't exist. It is statistically indistinguishable from no point at all. As you would know if you had any grasp of how statistics work.

 

[tupac chopra]

I am not ignoring your point; I am telling you that your point doesn't exist. It is statistically indistinguishable from no point at all. As you would know if you had any grasp of how statistics work.

Maybe it was just chance. Maybe it was just chance that the same effects were seen in the liver and kidneys in the only two experiments done too.

 

[bilby]

I am not ignoring your point; I am telling you that your point doesn't exist. It is statistically indistinguishable from no point at all. As you would know if you had any grasp of how statistics work.

Maybe it was just chance. Maybe it was just chance that the same effects were seen in the liver and kidneys in the only two experiments done too.

Exactly.

I know you were aiming for sarcasm; but your comments are 100% correct. There is nothing to see here; you are like the man who accuses the Casino of rigging the game on the basis that you saw the same number come up twice in a row on their roulette wheel; and that number came up several times yesterday too. Your evidence does not support your hunch. You are being misled by your ignorance of probability and statistics.

 

[tupac chopra]

Maybe it was just chance. Maybe it was just chance that the same effects were seen in the liver and kidneys in the only two experiments done too.

Exactly.

I know you were aiming for sarcasm; but your comments are 100% correct. There is nothing to see here; you are like the man who accuses the Casino of rigging the game on the basis that you saw the same number come up twice in a row on their roulette wheel; and that number came up several times yesterday too. Your evidence does not support your hunch. You are being misled by your ignorance of probability and statistics.

Not at all. Peoples health is at stake. This is an important issue. Lets have closer look.
We have many lines of evidence pointing in the same direction. You seem to be thinking there is only one line of evidence.

All your pronouncements about probability and statistics are meaningless unless you include all the lines of evidence.

 

[bilby]

Exactly.

I know you were aiming for sarcasm; but your comments are 100% correct. There is nothing to see here; you are like the man who accuses the Casino of rigging the game on the basis that you saw the same number come up twice in a row on their roulette wheel; and that number came up several times yesterday too. Your evidence does not support your hunch. You are being misled by your ignorance of probability and statistics.

Not at all. Peoples health is at stake. This is an important issue. Lets have closer look.
We have many lines of evidence pointing in the same direction. You seem to be thinking there is only one line of evidence.

All your pronouncements about probability and statistics are meaningless unless you include all the lines of evidence.

There are no 'lines of evidence'; just 'collections of errors of judgement by people who don't understand statistics'.

You have made it very clear that you are unqualified to determine what is or is not meaningless; and if you include all of the lines of evidence - Not just your preferred (and demonstrably flawed) studies, but also the hundreds of studies that show no issues, and the massive weight of evidence provided by the widespread use of GMOs over two decades with no reported issues for human or animal health - then the only possible conclusion is that GMOs are not harmful to humans, or to the environment as a class; and that the specific GMOs currently used to produce food for humans and animals are not harmful to humans or to animals - a conclusion that cannot be made for Organic crops, which are, in some circumstances, known to have caused illness and deaths.

If you are happy to accept the risks of catching an infection from FFOs (and you should be, because those risks are very small), then you must be far happier accepting the risks of GMOs, which are so much smaller as to be undetectable.

 

[tupac chopra]

Not at all. Peoples health is at stake. This is an important issue. Lets have closer look.
We have many lines of evidence pointing in the same direction. You seem to be thinking there is only one line of evidence.
All your pronouncements about probability and statistics are meaningless unless you include all the lines of evidence.

There are no 'lines of evidence'; just 'collections of errors of judgement by people who don't understand statistics'.
.

Hmmm...Seralini had their statistical work peer reviewed, and it passed. You on the other hand are some anonymous guy who spends an enormous amount of time on the internet. I know who I will go with. I'm sure you consider yourself some kind of expert, but having tens of thousands of posts in an amateur internet forum doesn't really make you able to say what is good and what isn't

 

[bilby]

There are no 'lines of evidence'; just 'collections of errors of judgement by people who don't understand statistics'.
.

Hmmm...Seralini had their statistical work peer reviewed, and it passed. You on the other hand are some anonymous guy who spends an enormous amount of time on the internet. I know who I will go with. I'm sure you consider yourself some kind of expert, but having tens of thousands of posts in an amateur internet forum doesn't really make you able to say what is good and what isn't

Seralini had his paper withdrawn, and it doesn't say what you want it to say anyway.

My qualifications are not relevant to whether or not this is true; the information is out there, and has been presented in this thread and others, using a combination of published peer-reviewed work, which you would do well to take notice of; and casual opinions by people you have no reason to trust, such as myself. I would not expect you to trust my opinion alone; Indeed, I would be disappointed in anyone who did. But you shouldn't discard the published body of work, nor the consensus of the identified experts in the field.

My opinion should be, like yours, worthless, except insofar as it is backed by science. And as a wise man once said, "...pronouncements about probability and statistics are meaningless unless you include all the lines of evidence.". That means no cherry picking - if hundreds of studies say GMO food is safe, and if hundreds of millions of people and thousands of millions of farm animals have eaten the stuff for twenty years and more without a single case of sickness or disease in which GMO food was implicated, then looking only at a handful of outlying studies would be unjustified, even if those studies had not been discredited and/or withdrawn.

I don't expect you to believe me because I am trustworthy - you don't know me, so you can't determine that. And I don't expect you to believe me because I have posted over 13,000 times on this board and its predecessors in the last 7 or 8 years - Loren Pechtel has posted more than I, and he is frequently full of shit. But I do expect you to believe me when I can back my arguments with high quality evidence; as you should believe anybody who can do that.

Right and wrong are determined by evidence. You have yet to convince me that you have any evidence that is worth the name; and you will need a shitload of it to overturn the mountain of evidence that says your position is wrong.

 

[tupac chopra]

That means no cherry picking - if hundreds of studies say GMO food is safe, .

Have you found any long term carcinogenic studies yet?

Studies don't say GMO food is safe, they say that if they set the bar really low they can say it is safe in a limited way.
A nutritional study like the one posted in this thread aren't going to give you much insight into whether GM corn causes tumors.
Yet somehow you can't seem to distinguish between a nutritional study and a cancer study.

Right and wrong are determined by evidence. You have yet to convince me that you have any evidence that is worth the name; and you will need a shitload of it to overturn the mountain of evidence that says your position is wrong.

You only have a mountain of evidence when you set the bar very low. You have no evidence about the long term effects, when it comes to things like tumors and precious little in the way of long term toxicological studies.

You have yet to convince me that you have any evidence that is worth the name;

And I should convince you....because?

 

[Togo]

The Questionist page on Facebook posted this today:

For those who don't understand how ridiculous GMO labeling would be, imagine the label in this image. E. coli contaminated organic spinach has actually sickened and killed people. On the other hand, there have been no documented, or even credibly suspected, incidents of GMOs being responsible for ill effects or deaths. Those who say that GMOs aren't 100% safe are correct, but only because nothing is 100% safe. What we do know is that GMOs are tested more than any agricultural product in history, there is no reason to think they may be harmful, and the risks are demonstrably lower than for organic spinach. Go ahead and eat your poop greens. I'll take frankenfood any day.

It does seem rather odd to campaign for labels to inform the public about GMOs (which have never been linked to any health issues in humans), while not campaigning for labels to inform the public about FFOs (which have caused deaths).

It is almost as if public health was not the driving force behind the 'Label GMOs' campaigns at all.

Why are we looking at a made up label, and being asked to imagine what GMO labelling would be like, rather than just looking at European labels?

 

[fromderinside]

Why are we looking at a made up label, and being asked to imagine what GMO labelling would be like, rather than just looking at European labels?

Good idea.

 

[tupac chopra]

Of course there is hint more research might be needed. Though after digging your heels in this far I don't expect you'll ever admit that.

That is definitely a hint something might be amiss



And remember this is the same sort of organ damage seen in a previous toxicology study. You of course ignore this point.

It is irrelevant; there is nothing here that would not be reasonably expected to happen in one of the two groups, even if both groups had been fed the control diet. You really don't seem to be able to grasp that if a result could easily occur by pure random chance, then that result does not tell you ANYTHING.

No, in your rush to respond you did not properly read what I wrote. I'm not talking about the two groups in the same study I'm talking about the only two toxicological studies done on the GM corn
Both studies (done in different years) showed disturbances in the liver and kidneys as opposed to other organs.
You did not account for that.

When we get the same disturbances in the same places in two independent studies it is a hint.

 

[bilby]

The Questionist page on Facebook posted this today:



It does seem rather odd to campaign for labels to inform the public about GMOs (which have never been linked to any health issues in humans), while not campaigning for labels to inform the public about FFOs (which have caused deaths).

It is almost as if public health was not the driving force behind the 'Label GMOs' campaigns at all.

Why are we looking at a made up label, and being asked to imagine what GMO labelling would be like, rather than just looking at European labels?

Because the point being made is not purely about labelling of GMOs.

Does the EU also require labelling of FFOs? If not, is this consistent with their position on labelling of GMOs?

 

[bilby]

It is irrelevant; there is nothing here that would not be reasonably expected to happen in one of the two groups, even if both groups had been fed the control diet. You really don't seem to be able to grasp that if a result could easily occur by pure random chance, then that result does not tell you ANYTHING.

No, in your rush to respond you did not properly read what I wrote. I'm not talking about the two groups in the same study I'm talking about the only two toxicological studies done on the GM corn
Both studies (done in different years) showed disturbances in the liver and kidneys as opposed to other organs.
You did not account for that.

When we get the same disturbances in the same places in two independent studies it is a hint.

It could be a hint; anything could be a hint of almost anything. But you haven't presented enough information to distinguish between a hint and a coincidence.

If two different dice are rolled simultaneously and both come up six, is that a hint that all the dice in the world are loaded?

And we need more than a hint to overturn a mountain of contrary evidence. Even if it were a hint, it hints at something we know not to be true.

Where are the huge numbers of additional cancers in the US compared to the EU in the last two decades? If RR corn was carcinogenic to the extent that the effect showed up in a tiny, short-term study (even at the level of a hint), then there would be hundreds of thousands or even millions of otherwise unexplained 'extra' cancers in US consumers of this corn that we would not see in the EU amongst people with a similar diet and lifestyle but no RR corn consumption.

If there was an actual effect, you wouldn't need to look at the handful of piss-poor, undersized and discredited trials so beloved of anti-science activists. The effects would be clear and obvious in the real world.

 

[tupac chopra]

And we need more than a hint to overturn a mountain of contrary evidence..

You still don't understand these studies. There is no mountain of contrary evidence. There are certain kinds of studies which set the bar very low.
The best any of you could come up with in this thread was a nutritional study.
http://genera.biofortified.org/view/Taylor2003

Compare this to this serious long term study to be done soon.
http://www.theguardian.com/environm...nto-safety-of-gm-food-launched-by-russian-ngo

But you just keep repeating the words "mountain of evidence...mountain of evidence...mountain of evidence"

 

[bilby]

And we need more than a hint to overturn a mountain of contrary evidence..

You still don't understand these studies. There is no mountain of contrary evidence. There are certain kinds of studies which set the bar very low.
The best any of you could come up with in this thread was a nutritional study.
http://genera.biofortified.org/view/Taylor2003

Compare this to this serious long term study to be done soon.
http://www.theguardian.com/environm...nto-safety-of-gm-food-launched-by-russian-ngo

But you just keep repeating the words "mountain of evidence...mountain of evidence...mountain of evidence"

It appears that your proprensity for cherry picking has left you unable to read the last two paragraphs of my post, where I set out the nature of this mountain of evidence.

You might be able to fool yourself by such selective reading; but you are fooling nobody else.

Here they are again:

Where are the huge numbers of additional cancers in the US compared to the EU in the last two decades? If RR corn was carcinogenic to the extent that the effect showed up in a tiny, short-term study (even at the level of a hint), then there would be hundreds of thousands or even millions of otherwise unexplained 'extra' cancers in US consumers of this corn that we would not see in the EU amongst people with a similar diet and lifestyle but no RR corn consumption.

If there was an actual effect, you wouldn't need to look at the handful of piss-poor, undersized and discredited trials so beloved of anti-science activists. The effects would be clear and obvious in the real world.

 

[tupac chopra]

Of course as this very recent study was not done by Monsanto I'm confident some people won't accept it

Genetically modified soybean in a goat diet: Influence on kid performance

The in vivo and post mortem performance and serum immunoglobulin G (IgG) concentration in kids born from goats fed conventional (group C) or genetically modified (group T) soybean meal were evaluated. The goat colostrum quality, in terms of chemical composition, as well as immunoglobulin concentration, and the presence of feed DNA fragments were also investigated. Kid birth weights were similar, while significantly (P < 0.05) higher in those born from goats in group C at day 30 and at slaughtering. In addition, kids from mothers fed conventional soybean recorded significant (P < 0.05) higher height at the withers and chest width. Concerning the post mortem measurements, only carcass weights were significantly affected by the treatment resulting in lighter T kids (P < 0.05). Colostrum from the treated groups recorded a significantly (P < 0.01) lower percentage of protein and fat. Similarly, both chemical parameters significantly differed in milk collected 15 days after kidding, although these differences disappeared in the successive samplings. Both colostrum and kids serum IgG concentration were significantly (P < 0.01) lower in the treated groups. Transgenic target DNA sequences (35S and CP4 EPSPS) were not detected in colostrum from goats that received a diet containing conventional soybean meal. By contrast, transgenic DNA fragments were amplified (P < 0.05) in samples from goats that received the transgenic soybean.

 

[AdamWho]

I don't know why this sub is getting backwards on this issue.

I understand that there has been a decrease in the whole science and skepticism thing over the years but the anti-GMO pseudoscience and conspiracy theories is right up there with climate change denial and anti-vaxxers.


There are 1000s of studies on the safety of GM crops a huge fraction of which are completely independent of any bad old corporate money.

And over and over and over, they find the same thing: There is no difference in health or safety between GM and non-GM crops. Every reputable scientific body who has investigate this has come up with the same thing.


There isn't even a viable mechanism by which the current GM crops could be harmful. DNA is DNA, it all gets digested.

At best some of these posts read like 9-11 truthers arguing over some weird irrelevant technical detail and missing obvious facts in favor of propping up conspiracy theories and pseudoscience

 

[tupac chopra]

And over and over and over, they find the same thing: There is no difference in health or safety between GM and non-GM crops. Every reputable scientific body who has investigate this has come up with the same thing.

Really?

A literature review on the safety assessment of genetically modified plants.

Abstract
In recent years, there has been a notable concern on the safety of genetically modified (GM) foods/plants, an important and complex area of research, which demands rigorous standards. Diverse groups including consumers and environmental Non Governmental Organizations (NGO) have suggested that all GM foods/plants should be subjected to long-term animal feeding studies before approval for human consumption. In 2000 and 2006, we reviewed the information published in international scientific journals, noting that the number of references concerning human and animal toxicological/health risks studies on GM foods/plants was very limited. The main goal of the present review was to assess the current state-of-the-art regarding the potential adverse effects/safety assessment of GM plants for human consumption. The number of citations found in databases (PubMed and Scopus) has dramatically increased since 2006. However, new information on products such as potatoes, cucumber, peas or tomatoes, among others was not available. Corn/maize, rice, and soybeans were included in the present review. An equilibrium in the number research groups suggesting, on the basis of their studies, that a number of varieties of GM products (mainly maize and soybeans) are as safe and nutritious as the respective conventional non-GM plant, and those raising still serious concerns, was currently observed. Nevertheless, it should be noted that most of these studies have been conducted by biotechnology companies responsible of commercializing these GM plants. These findings suggest a notable advance in comparison with the lack of studies published in recent years in scientific journals by those companies. All this recent information is herein critically reviewed

Bolding, mine

 

[Underseer]

Is "raising serious concerns" the same or different from proving that something has negative health effects?

Out of those scientific studies that "raise serious concerns," how many of them prove a link between GMO produce and verifiable health effects?