March Against Myths

[Rhea]

The investigation is to develop new products (that customers want and will buy) and to test those products to be sure they meet the advertised claims and do no harm.
....

[then from your next post]

Monsanto does the investigation to protect their ass.

Your latter statement is correct, while the former is false because profit can still be made despite wrong-doing and lies.

Monsanto is solely concerned about profit. Products do not need to be shown to be safe or actually meet advertised claims for companies to make billions in profits. Any honest corporate lawyer will tell you that companies very consciously and explicitly choose to make false claims and/or put out or fail to recall potentially harmful products based upon risk/reward calculations that the likely levels of profit exceed the likely payouts due to lawsuits, etc..
First, consumers must become aware that the product doesn't do what it claims and/or is harmful (and often this is unlikely due to the indirect and not easily testable nature of the effects), and then they must be able to prove it (which is a much higher bar), and even then they are likely "to make profits that far exceed any legal payouts. Also, given the religion of "business is business" in which ethics are deemed not to apply to economic transactions, companies are rarely held accountable by consumers for past wrongs. This is also aided by the shell company names under which so many products are marketed, and the near monopolies or vertical control they often hold on particular markets.

In sum, company claims of product attributes or safety are not based upon science. They are based upon reward-risk profitability estimates made by a combination of their lawyers, marketers, and accountants who merely use both the science the company makes public and the science they keep secret (often b/c it contradicts their claims) as one factor in their calculations. They only make claims consistent with valid science under those circumstances where they estimate that the cost of ignoring the science outweigh the profits.

Unlike anti-GMO activists, I'm not ignorant enough to think that GMO is inherently dangerous or something to be especially frightened about. But I am also not ignorant enough to think that corporations care about valid science or public safety, beyond the most minimally level that the situation requires them to in order to be profitable, and often profits are greater when the science and public safety are disregarded.

Yes, this.

A claim that Monsanto has a "do no harm" standard is arguably more naive than a claim that GMOs are harmful. There are some unknowns about GMO's long term health implications. There are no unknowns about Monsanto being willing to do harm if it turns a buck, and produce some "science" (and hide other "science") that attempts to exonerate them.

 

[Jokodo]

Your latter statement is correct, while the former is false because profit can still be made despite wrong-doing and lies.

Monsanto is solely concerned about profit. Products do not need to be shown to be safe or actually meet advertised claims for companies to make billions in profits. Any honest corporate lawyer will tell you that companies very consciously and explicitly choose to make false claims and/or put out or fail to recall potentially harmful products based upon risk/reward calculations that the likely levels of profit exceed the likely payouts due to lawsuits, etc..
First, consumers must become aware that the product doesn't do what it claims and/or is harmful (and often this is unlikely due to the indirect and not easily testable nature of the effects), and then they must be able to prove it (which is a much higher bar), and even then they are likely "to make profits that far exceed any legal payouts. Also, given the religion of "business is business" in which ethics are deemed not to apply to economic transactions, companies are rarely held accountable by consumers for past wrongs. This is also aided by the shell company names under which so many products are marketed, and the near monopolies or vertical control they often hold on particular markets.

In sum, company claims of product attributes or safety are not based upon science. They are based upon reward-risk profitability estimates made by a combination of their lawyers, marketers, and accountants who merely use both the science the company makes public and the science they keep secret (often b/c it contradicts their claims) as one factor in their calculations. They only make claims consistent with valid science under those circumstances where they estimate that the cost of ignoring the science outweigh the profits.

Unlike anti-GMO activists, I'm not ignorant enough to think that GMO is inherently dangerous or something to be especially frightened about. But I am also not ignorant enough to think that corporations care about valid science or public safety, beyond the most minimally level that the situation requires them to in order to be profitable, and often profits are greater when the science and public safety are disregarded.

Yes, this.

A claim that Monsanto has a "do no harm" standard is arguably more naive than a claim that GMOs are harmful. There are some unknowns about GMO's long term health implications. There are no unknowns about Monsanto being willing to do harm if it turns a buck, and produce some "science" (and hide other "science") that attempts to exonerate them.

Ther are no unknowns about the long term health implications of GMOs as a group, any more than there are unknowns about plants sown on a Tuesday in March. Genetic modification describes a process, but the results of that process don't have any unifying and exclusive properties.

 

[fromderinside]

Absolutely not. The investigation is to develop new products (that customers want and will buy) and to test those products to be sure they meet the advertised claims and do no harm.

So if you don't do a neutral investigation into whether they are harmful then you can't establish they do no harm.

I understand that you hate big business but this is just insane.

Flacid attempt to poison the well by making this personal rather than about science.

Is it too much for you to avoid personal comments (and false ones at that) and stick to science?

OK. So Monsanto is biased and it is covering its ass. Where are the independent peer reviewed studies showing GMOs are harmful? OH? Monsanto buys them off? Nice try. Gotta give a bullshit to that. Please note I wrote independent not anti-Monsanto.

 

[tupac chopra]

So if you don't do a neutral investigation into whether they are harmful then you can't establish they do no harm.

I understand that you hate big business but this is just insane.

Flacid attempt to poison the well by making this personal rather than about science.

Is it too much for you to avoid personal comments (and false ones at that) and stick to science?

OK. So Monsanto is biased and it is covering its ass. Where are the independent peer reviewed studies showing GMOs are harmful? OH? Monsanto buys them off? Nice try. Gotta give a bullshit to that. Please note I wrote independent not anti-Monsanto.

If you don't do any studies then you don't find any evidence of harm. So Monsanto doesn't have to "buy anyone off" if no studies are done.
Don’t Look, Don’t Find: Health Hazards
of Genetically Modified Food

One of the critics pointed to the unexpected nature of Séralini’s
findings. Mark Tester, research professor at the Australian Centre
for Plant Functional Genomics, University of Adelaide, said, “The
first thing that leaps to my mind is why has nothing emerged from
epidemiological studies in the countries where so much GM has
been in the food chain for so long? If the effects are as big as
purported, and if the work really is relevant to humans, why aren’t
the North Americans dropping like flies?”4
This quote was cited uncritically in media articles worldwide.6
Yet
no reporter asked how many epidemiological studies have been
carried out to examine the effects on humans of eating GM foods.
The answer: none. Nor did they ask how such studies could be
carried out in the country where most GM foods have been eaten
for the longest time, the United States, given that GM foods are
not labeled there and consumption cannot be traced.

Your reply is typical of Monsanto and their followers.

There has been one and only one long term study of Monsanto's GM corn and that study ended in huge controversy.

Now another study is being conducted.
Largest international study into safety of GM food launched by Russian NGO

A Russian group working with scientists is set to launch what they call the world’s largest and most comprehensive long-term health study on a GM food.

The $25m three-year experiment will involve scientists testing thousands of rats which will be fed differing diets of a Monsanto GM maize and the world’s most widely-used herbicide which it it is engineered to be grown with.

The organisers of the Factor GMO [genetically modified organism] study, announced in London on Tuesday and due to start fully next year, say it will investigate the long-term health effects of a diet of a GM maize developed by US seed and chemical company Monsanto.

“It will answer the question: is this GM food, and associated pesticide, safe for human health?” said Elena Sharoykina, a campaigner and co-founder of the Russian national association for genetic safety (Nags), the co-ordinator of the experiment

.