Support GMO foods

[tupac chopra]

Large-Scale Deployment of Seed Treatments Has Driven Rapid Increase in Use of Neonicotinoid Insecticides and Preemptive Pest Management in U.S. Field Crops

Neonicotinoids are the most widely used class of insecticides worldwide, but patterns of their use in the U.S. are poorly documented, constraining attempts to understand their role in pest management and potential nontarget effects. We synthesized publicly available data to estimate and interpret trends in neonicotinoid use since their introduction in 1994, with a special focus on seed treatments, a major use not captured by the national pesticide-use survey. Neonicotinoid use increased rapidly between 2003 and 2011, as seed-applied products were introduced in field crops, marking an unprecedented shift toward large-scale, preemptive insecticide use: 34–44% of soybeans and 79–100% of maize hectares were treated in 2011. This finding contradicts recent analyses, which concluded that insecticides are used today on fewer maize hectares than a decade or two ago. If current trends continue, neonicotinoid use will increase further through application to more hectares of soybean and other crop species and escalation of per-seed rates. Alternatively, our results, and other recent analyses, suggest that carefully targeted efforts could considerably reduce neonicotinoid use in field crops without yield declines or economic harm to farmers, reducing the potential for pest resistance, nontarget pest outbreaks, environmental contamination, and harm to wildlife, including pollinator species

 

[tupac chopra]

This is wonderful!

Perhaps you like to help with this study too?
http://feedtheworld.info/intro/

Glyphosate: #takethetest

Feed the World has set up the first ever validated glyphosate testing (LC/MS/MS) for the general public worldwide, which will be provided in the U.S. with the support of the Organic Consumers Association (OCA).
If you live in the U.S. and would like to test your urine, breast milk or tap water for glyphosate contamination please order and pay for the test in the form below.

 

[ApostateAbe]

Perhaps you like to help with this study too?
http://feedtheworld.info/intro/

Glyphosate: #takethetest

Feed the World has set up the first ever validated glyphosate testing (LC/MS/MS) for the general public worldwide, which will be provided in the U.S. with the support of the Organic Consumers Association (OCA).
If you live in the U.S. and would like to test your urine, breast milk or tap water for glyphosate contamination please order and pay for the test in the form below.

I don't think it is worth the cost for me (I am between jobs), but if you get tested then please share the results. Should be interesting. I think I would be concerned if I worked on a farm and breathed it excessively every day.

 

[bleubird]

I am on the fence when it comes to GMOs. But this seems like good thing:http://www.simplotplantsciences.com...w/innate-potato-receives-fda-safety-clearance

 

[SimpleDon]

I am on the fence when it comes to GMOs. But this seems like good thing:http://www.simplotplantsciences.com...w/innate-potato-receives-fda-safety-clearance

And yet the Anti-GMOs are after Simplot too.

http://media.mtvnservices.com/embed...show.com:b291ba84-9bb1-4e20-9842-937bceb94d3d

You can't really scoff at the climate change deniers and then turn around and be anti-GMO or anti-Vaxx,. Can you?

Here is an article out of the Times today, How I got converted to GMO foods.

I, too, was once in that activist camp. A lifelong environmentalist, I opposed genetically modified foods in the past. Fifteen years ago, I even participated in vandalizing field trials in Britain. Then I changed my mind.

After writing two books on the science of climate change, I decided I could no longer continue taking a pro-science position on global warming and an anti-science position on G.M.O.s.

There is an equivalent level of scientific consensus on both issues, I realized, that climate change is real and genetically modified foods are safe. I could not defend the expert consensus on one issue while opposing it on the other.

The environmental movement’s war against genetic engineering has led to a deepening rift with the scientific community. A recent survey by the Pew Research Center and the American Association for the Advancement of Science showed a greater gap between scientists and the public on G.M.O.s than on any other scientific controversy: While 88 percent of association scientists agreed it was safe to eat genetically modified foods, only 37 percent of the public did — a gap in perceptions of 51 points. (The gap on climate change was 37 points; on childhood vaccinations, 18 points.)

 

[Will Wiley]

I am on the fence when it comes to GMOs. But this seems like good thing:http://www.simplotplantsciences.com...w/innate-potato-receives-fda-safety-clearance

From your link

The FDA concluded the Innate potato is as safe and nutritious as conventional potatoes

Do you know what evidence led to the FDA making this conclusion?
The "expert commentary" makes the claim that this potato (or perhaps another one) is (or perhaps will be) even healthier. Going further than the FDA

August 23, 2012
Truth about Trade & Technology
By Duane Grant: Rupert, Idaho

Consumers are going to love what biotechnology can do for potatoes. Not only will GM potatoes look and taste better than the conventional varieties we already love--they're going to be healthier as well.

 

[NobleSavage]

There is no obvious mechanism by which GMOs would be expected to be more harmful (or more likely to be harmful) than non-GMO crops; indeed quite the reverse.

Hey Bilby, I have not read through all 50 pages so I don't know if this has been addressed, but WRT your info-graphic my uneducated comeback would be that with normal breeding the number of things that can be crossed is limited. With GMO you can take a specific gene from most anywhere -- like a fish. Is this true? Would it lead to more "fuck if we know what the outcome will be"?

 

[Will Wiley]

There is no obvious mechanism by which GMOs would be expected to be more harmful (or more likely to be harmful) than non-GMO crops; indeed quite the reverse.

Hey Bilby, I have not read through all 50 pages so I don't know if this has been addressed, but WRT your info-graphic my uneducated comeback would be that with normal breeding the number of things that can be crossed is limited. With GMO you can take a specific gene from most anywhere -- like a fish. Is this true? Would it lead to more "fuck if we know what the outcome will be"?

The diagram gives the impression that the new portion of DNA (gene) has no effect on the rest of the DNA, or the environment. This model has been very helpful, but naturally as we look at it we then ask what is the relationship between one particular portion of DNA (the "gene") and the rest of the DNA , and what is the relationship between the genome and the environment. Do the genes "talk" to the genome and does the DNA "talk" to the environment?
If they don't "communicate" then there can be no problems but if there is communication then what is it's nature?

 

[arkirk]

Actually, what looks like a wonderful success at one time can have terrible unintended consequences in just a few short years. We are discovering this with a lot of our antibiotics and I trust the same kind of problems will crop up with GMO's. They are disruptive in the economy and have effects on the environment, sometimes due to their resistance to various chemical treatments. This alters the biotic balance of our entire environment and impoverishes biodiversity. Part of the problem is our tendency to act like Henry Ford and imagine these model T's of the GMO world will remain the last word...till THEIR WEAKNESSES ARE DISCOVERED. The problem is really a matter of the human capacity to replicate something and eliminate all the something else's. This has been a problem with agriculture since day 1. This is a general principle we have seen play out historically many times.

 

[bilby]

There is no obvious mechanism by which GMOs would be expected to be more harmful (or more likely to be harmful) than non-GMO crops; indeed quite the reverse.

Hey Bilby, I have not read through all 50 pages so I don't know if this has been addressed, but WRT your info-graphic my uneducated comeback would be that with normal breeding the number of things that can be crossed is limited. With GMO you can take a specific gene from most anywhere -- like a fish. Is this true? Would it lead to more "fuck if we know what the outcome will be"?

DNA is DNA. There is nothing special about 'fish genes' that differentiates then from 'maize genes', any more than there is something special about 'bus shelter polycarbonate' that renders it incapable of being used to build a greenhouse.

You wouldn't expect a greenhouse to be built using polycarbonate sheeting, because it is expensive; but bus shelters built with glass get vandalised. Back in the '80s, Pontefract council got fed up with the cost of replacing the vandalised glass every couple of weeks, and switched to using Lexan. The local allotment owners discovered that a few minutes work with a screwdriver got them 'free' transparent polycarbonate. Their tomatoes didn't mind; and the commuters were used to getting rained on.

The building blocks of life are all the same - common descent is convenient like that.

Nobody is using unknown or un-studied genes to make GMOs, so the chance of a completely bizarre outcome is low; unlike with radiation mutagenesis, for example, where the outcome is truly random.

The opposite of your concern is true. All the other techniques - including simple reproduction without human intervention - have a greater chance of a WTF outcome than splicing in one known gene does.

 

[bilby]

Hey Bilby, I have not read through all 50 pages so I don't know if this has been addressed, but WRT your info-graphic my uneducated comeback would be that with normal breeding the number of things that can be crossed is limited. With GMO you can take a specific gene from most anywhere -- like a fish. Is this true? Would it lead to more "fuck if we know what the outcome will be"?

The diagram gives the impression that the new portion of DNA (gene) has no effect on the rest of the DNA, or the environment. This model has been very helpful, but naturally as we look at it we then ask what is the relationship between one particular portion of DNA (the "gene") and the rest of the DNA , and what is the relationship between the genome and the environment. Do the genes "talk" to the genome and does the DNA "talk" to the environment?
If they don't "communicate" then there can be no problems but if there is communication then what is it's nature?

Its nature is exactly the same as that of genes transferred or altered by 'natural' means, or by any of the other mutagenic breeding techniques currently used. The only difference is that those other processes are far less controlled, so the results are far more likely to be a surprise.

 

[bilby]

Actually, what looks like a wonderful success at one time can have terrible unintended consequences in just a few short years. We are discovering this with a lot of our antibiotics and I trust the same kind of problems will crop up with GMO's. They are disruptive in the economy and have effects on the environment, sometimes due to their resistance to various chemical treatments. This alters the biotic balance of our entire environment and impoverishes biodiversity. Part of the problem is our tendency to act like Henry Ford and imagine these model T's of the GMO world will remain the last word...till THEIR WEAKNESSES ARE DISCOVERED. The problem is really a matter of the human capacity to replicate something and eliminate all the something else's. This has been a problem with agriculture since day 1. This is a general principle we have seen play out historically many times.

You are absolutely correct; your objection here has nothing specifically to do with GMOs, and is a problem with technology since day 1.

Humans alter their environment using technology. Have done for 8,000+ years. This particular technology is no worse than any other; but you sit in your warm house wearing warm clothes and complain about it via the electric Internet. That suggests to me that humans are not only inveterate users of technology; we are also inveterate hypocrites.

 

[arkirk]

Actually, what looks like a wonderful success at one time can have terrible unintended consequences in just a few short years. We are discovering this with a lot of our antibiotics and I trust the same kind of problems will crop up with GMO's. They are disruptive in the economy and have effects on the environment, sometimes due to their resistance to various chemical treatments. This alters the biotic balance of our entire environment and impoverishes biodiversity. Part of the problem is our tendency to act like Henry Ford and imagine these model T's of the GMO world will remain the last word...till THEIR WEAKNESSES ARE DISCOVERED. The problem is really a matter of the human capacity to replicate something and eliminate all the something else's. This has been a problem with agriculture since day 1. This is a general principle we have seen play out historically many times.

You are absolutely correct; your objection here has nothing specifically to do with GMOs, and is a problem with technology since day 1.

Humans alter their environment using technology. Have done for 8,000+ years. This particular technology is no worse than any other; but you sit in your warm house wearing warm clothes and complain about it via the electric Internet. That suggests to me that humans are not only inveterate users of technology; we are also inveterate hypocrites.

Still at it huh? Insult does not pass for argument. I have a very minimal carbon footprint...internet and all. The RATE OF CHANGE IN THE INDUSTRIAL AGE IS ACTUALLY FAR GREATER THAN EVER BEFORE. In the last 100 years we have done more to our environment than we did in the last 8,000 years. You are not acknowledging that 8,000 year old attitudes are not appropriate in the world of today. Your cock sure attitude is a symptom of a special kind of faith you have in techniques, and technologies that have already seriously altered our environment and made human life on this planet a tenuous affair. You seem like you are willing to move on with this mass destruction and pollution regardless of whom or what gets destroyed, so there is no sense in arguing with you. You will just bury me with your epithets and accusations all the while saying 'we gotta push on.' The late Pete Seeger had a song about you and those like you...it was a song about a sergeant who marched his troops into a swamp to drown. You have no sense of how serious the conditions are and how rapidly they are deteriorating. You accept no responsibility...oh well, I guess that is some people's idea of "freedom." Freedom to fuck other people over and take them with you down a path to potential horrendous failure. We have to stop getting all gushy about modern wonders. They usually end up shitting on us and the environment if we are hasty deploying them worldwide. I ask you again to try to understand. You and your fellow faithful are not qualified to be the commanders in chief of the world.

The class distinctions which you secretly acknowledge to yourself are extremely harmful to those you refuse to allow input in world affairs, instead placing yourself and others in the hands of unscrupulous and often megalomaniac industrial leaders. So you want a dam, the indigenous dwellers in the lake bottom just have to get the fuck out of the way. You want gold or coal or natural gas...get those fuckers out of the way! You want profits...then screw any little people who might get in the way of the great technological armies hired to rearrange the planet for profit. We are losing our heads over a miracle that is a chimera.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The opposite of your concern is true. All the other techniques - including simple reproduction without human intervention - have a greater chance of a WTF outcome than splicing in one known gene does.

Huh? Doesn't gene splicing have the same random chances that you get with simple reproduction and thus not a lower WTF risk?

 

[arkirk]

The opposite of your concern is true. All the other techniques - including simple reproduction without human intervention - have a greater chance of a WTF outcome than splicing in one known gene does.

Huh? Doesn't gene splicing have the same random chances that you get with simple reproduction and thus not a lower WTF risk?

With Monsanto, the purpose of gene splicing is to increase crop plant tolerance to chemical herbicides and pesticides. Once the tolerances are achieved in the target plant, then everything else gets polluted with these poisons. The actual GMO process only facilitates poisoning of the environment and in itself is sometimes of little other consequence. It is not just GMO plants flooding our environment. It is also their companion poisons. That shouldn't be too hard to understand. The WTF risk is the wholesale spreading of industrial chemicals and an off chance of WTF from the GMO itself. The GMO, displaces other organisms in the space it occupies and contributes to the diversity barrenness. We can be extincting other organisms that later will prove to be indispensible to our own survival. It is the sheer scale of industrial agriculture that is the greatest threat and does the greatest harm, regardless of GMO's or not.

 

[tupac chopra]

The diagram gives the impression that the new portion of DNA (gene) has no effect on the rest of the DNA, or the environment. This model has been very helpful, but naturally as we look at it we then ask what is the relationship between one particular portion of DNA (the "gene") and the rest of the DNA , and what is the relationship between the genome and the environment. Do the genes "talk" to the genome and does the DNA "talk" to the environment?
If they don't "communicate" then there can be no problems but if there is communication then what is it's nature?

Its nature is exactly the same as that of genes transferred or altered by 'natural' means, or by any of the other mutagenic breeding techniques currently used. The only difference is that those other processes are far less controlled, so the results are far more likely to be a surprise.

You cannot just claim this to be true. You need to back this up with science. You might have faith that this is true, but you believing it doesn't make it so.
Do you have any science to back up your belief?

 

[tupac chopra]

The claims from GMO enthusiasts need to be demonstrated not assumed to be true.

Transgene Expression and Bt Protein Content in Transgenic Bt Maize (MON810) under Optimal and Stressful Environmental Conditions

Genetic modification of crop plants often has the goal to engineer lines that express novel traits that cannot be introduced into the crop by conventional breeding. Such bioengineering efforts build on the expectation that target gene(s) conferring the desired trait, in association with suitable regulatory elements that are also part of the transgene construct, express the desired trait in a stable and reliable manner. This expectation remains to be evaluated, for example when the transgene is introduced into different genetic background (i.e. varieties) or when genetically modified (GM) plants are exposed to diverse environmental conditions.

 

[bilby]

Its nature is exactly the same as that of genes transferred or altered by 'natural' means, or by any of the other mutagenic breeding techniques currently used. The only difference is that those other processes are far less controlled, so the results are far more likely to be a surprise.

You cannot just claim this to be true. You need to back this up with science. You might have faith that this is true, but you believing it doesn't make it so.
Do you have any science to back up your belief?

DNA is DNA, regardless of how it is assembled.

If I start with:

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dogs​

and end with

The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dogs​

what difference does it make whether I deleted the letter 's' with the backspace key, and then typed 'ed'; or whether I copied the word 'jumped' from another text using Ctrl+C, and pasted it over the word 'jumps' using Ctrl+V?

The technique by which a given DNA base pair sequence is assembled has exactly NO effect on the resulting sequence. There is no way to tell how a given sequence was assembled; Two identical sequences made using different techniques cannot produce different results.

Of course, you probably don't recognise the above as science; but frankly, neither I nor reality give a shit what you believe.

 

[bilby]

You are absolutely correct; your objection here has nothing specifically to do with GMOs, and is a problem with technology since day 1.

Humans alter their environment using technology. Have done for 8,000+ years. This particular technology is no worse than any other; but you sit in your warm house wearing warm clothes and complain about it via the electric Internet. That suggests to me that humans are not only inveterate users of technology; we are also inveterate hypocrites.

Still at it huh? Insult does not pass for argument.

This is true.

I have a very minimal carbon footprint...internet and all. The RATE OF CHANGE IN THE INDUSTRIAL AGE IS ACTUALLY FAR GREATER THAN EVER BEFORE. In the last 100 years we have done more to our environment than we did in the last 8,000 years. You are not acknowledging that 8,000 year old attitudes are not appropriate in the world of today. Your cock sure attitude is a symptom of a special kind of faith you have in techniques, and technologies that have already seriously altered our environment and made human life on this planet a tenuous affair. You seem like you are willing to move on with this mass destruction and pollution regardless of whom or what gets destroyed, so there is no sense in arguing with you. You will just bury me with your epithets and accusations all the while saying 'we gotta push on.' The late Pete Seeger had a song about you and those like you...it was a song about a sergeant who marched his troops into a swamp to drown. You have no sense of how serious the conditions are and how rapidly they are deteriorating. You accept no responsibility...oh well, I guess that is some people's idea of "freedom." Freedom to fuck other people over and take them with you down a path to potential horrendous failure. We have to stop getting all gushy about modern wonders. They usually end up shitting on us and the environment if we are hasty deploying them worldwide. I ask you again to try to understand. You and your fellow faithful are not qualified to be the commanders in chief of the world.

The class distinctions which you secretly acknowledge to yourself are extremely harmful to those you refuse to allow input in world affairs, instead placing yourself and others in the hands of unscrupulous and often megalomaniac industrial leaders. So you want a dam, the indigenous dwellers in the lake bottom just have to get the fuck out of the way. You want gold or coal or natural gas...get those fuckers out of the way! You want profits...then screw any little people who might get in the way of the great technological armies hired to rearrange the planet for profit. We are losing our heads over a miracle that is a chimera.

And this is a very good example of a series of insults that do not pass for argument. You don't even mention GMOs, which, in case you forgot, are the topic under discussion.

Just because I disagree with your position on GMOs does not mean that I must therefore disagree with your position on everything. Your rant is misplaced, and makes you appear foolish, as well as hypocritical.

I am confident that GMOs are not harmful, because I have taken the time to study the science behind the techniques that you deride. That doesn't make me an authority on such unrelated topics as mass destruction; pollution; class distinctions; word affairs; megalomania amongst industrial leaders; dams; indigenous affairs; gold; coal; natural gas; profits or technological armies. But that's OK, because those things have FUCK ALL TO DO WITH IT. The only connection is an apparent persecution complex on your part that renders you incapable of even imagining a person might oppose your view on one topic while agreeing with you on others.

Your silo based, hyper-political, polarised worldview is becoming truly tiresome. You are right about some things, and wrong about others, and it harms your cause to accuse every person who opposes you on topic 'A' of also opposing you on topics 'B' thru 'Z'.

 

[ZiprHead]

You cannot just claim this to be true. You need to back this up with science. You might have faith that this is true, but you believing it doesn't make it so.
Do you have any science to back up your belief?

DNA is DNA, regardless of how it is assembled.

If I start with:

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dogs​

and end with

The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dogs​

what difference does it make whether I deleted the letter 's' with the backspace key, and then typed 'ed'; or whether I copied the word 'jumped' from another text using Ctrl+C, and pasted it over the word 'jumps' using Ctrl+V?

The technique by which a given DNA base pair sequence is assembled has exactly NO effect on the resulting sequence. There is no way to tell how a given sequence was assembled; Two identical sequences made using different techniques cannot produce different results.

Of course, you probably don't recognise the above as science; but frankly, neither I nor reality give a shit what you believe.

Wow, that has got to be the stupidest argument to ignore the dangers of genetic engineering I've ever encountered.