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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsPlant biologist expresses growing concerns about inadequacy of GMO risk assessment and testing
Growing Doubt: a Scientists Experience of GMOsJonathan R. Latham, PhD
By training, I am a plant biologist. In the early 1990s I was busy making genetically modified plants (often called GMOs for Genetically Modified Organisms) as part of the research that led to my PhD. Into these plants we were putting DNA from various foreign organisms, such as viruses and bacteria.
I was not, at the outset, concerned about the possible effects of GM plants on human health or the environment. One reason for this lack of concern was that I was still a very young scientist, feeling my way in the complex world of biology and of scientific research. Another reason was that we hardly imagined that GMOs like ours would be grown or eaten. So far as I was concerned, all GMOs were for research purposes only.
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I now believe, as a much more experienced scientist, that GMO crops still run far ahead of our understanding of their risks. In broad outline, the reasons for this belief are quite simple. I have become much more appreciative of the complexity of biological organisms and their capacity for benefits and harms. As a scientist I have become much more humble about the capacity of science to do more than scratch the surface in its understanding of the deep complexity and diversity of the natural world. To paraphrase a cliché, I more and more appreciate that as scientists we understand less and less.
The Flawed Processes of GMO Risk Assessment
Some of my concerns with GMOs are just practical ones. I have read numerous GMO risk assessment applications. These are the documents that governments rely on to prove their safety. Though these documents are quite long and quite complex, their length is misleading in that they primarily ask (and answer) trivial questions. Furthermore, the experiments described within them are often very inadequate and sloppily executed. Scientific controls are often missing, procedures and reagents are badly described, and the results are often ambiguous or uninterpretable. I do not believe that this ambiguity and apparent incompetence is accidental. It is common, for example, for multinational corporations, whose labs have the latest equipment, to use outdated methodologies. When the results show what the applicants want, nothing is said. But when the results are inconvenient, and raise red flags, they blame the limitations of the antiquated method. This bulletproof logic, in which applicants claim safety no matter what the data shows, or how badly the experiment was performed, is routine in formal GMO risk assessment.
http://www.independentsciencenews.org/health/growing-doubt-a-scientists-experience-of-gmos/
jeff47
(26,549 posts)then he'll be actually doing what he claims.
You don't need to manually splice DNA to create a dangerous crop. If that is dangerous, then radiation-induced and chemical-induced hybrids are too.
Heck, I can use ancient "all natural" techniques to splice nightshade and tomatoes. It probably won't be healthy food. But I can sell it with zero testing.
If you want food safety, then ask for food safety. If you want "GMOs are scary!!" then you aren't asking for food safety.
SoLeftIAmRight
(4,883 posts)TEST ALL FOOD
GMO and food "science" is not science
You are on to something jeff - stop all GMO until real science is done and begin real study of all food
JohnyCanuck
(9,922 posts)nationalize the fed
(2,169 posts)The Revolving Door: ex Monsanto executives make law
The revolving door is a massive problem in American politics, where individuals cycle between public and private sector positions in a way that produces massive conflicts of interest. An individual can start their career working for a for-profit corporation, then migrate into a regulatory post or elected office, then into trade association positions, and finally go back to the private sector and make a huge profit off of decisions that they made during their previous public positions.
The multi-billion dollar agribusiness giant Monsanto has a long and extremely widespread history of participation in this revolving door, at every level of American government. Ex-Monsanto employees, particularly from their lobbying and legal infrastructures, fill numerous judicial, regulatory and advisory positions in the US government...
http://theprogressivecynic.com/2014/06/10/monsantos-revolving-door/
JohnyCanuck
(9,922 posts)Another snip from Latham's article linked above in the OP:
The True Purpose of GMOs
Science is not the only grounds on which GMOs should be judged. The commercial purpose of GMOs is not to feed the world or improve farming. Rather, they exist to gain intellectual property (i.e. patent rights) over seeds and plant breeding and to drive agriculture in directions that benefit agribusiness. This drive is occurring at the expense of farmers, consumers and the natural world. US Farmers, for example, have seen seed costs nearly quadruple and seed choices greatly narrow since the introduction of GMOs. The fight over GMOs is not of narrow importance. It affects us all.
Now see this:
Watch Neil Youngs Seeding Fear documentary exposing Monsantos attacks on family farmers who refuse to submit to totalitarian GMO agriculture
A war veteran, Whites father suffered immensely at the hands of Monsanto, having been repeatedly dragged into federal court with his walker to defend himself against the multinational corporation. White says Monsanto has sued at least seven other farmers in the area, and threatened to sue dozens of others.
You see, Monsanto doesnt like competition, and the Whites seed-cleaning business represented just that. White and his family have been cleaning seeds for many generations, and prior to the advent of GMOs, this is how all farmers grew new crops every year. But Monsantos business model of absolute seed control doesnt mesh into this paradigm.
Ive been growing these seeds for about 20 years some of them may be 30 years old well clean these and replant them next year. That way I dont have to go buy new seed every year; I save my own, which saves me about $20,000, and I dont have to give it to some big agricultural corporation, White states in the film, as he throws a handful of corn seed into a bin.
Not many seed-cleaning places are left; its just gotten too dangerous. Monsanto sued about seven farmers around here, and they threatened to sue 75 farmers. They spread a lot of discord in this community. I can still clean for the public, but its too dangerous. Monsanto will send a private investigator in here with a load of seed, and lie to you about what hes got. And then you clean them and youre hung.
http://rinf.com/alt-news/newswire/watch-neil-youngs-seeding-fear-documentary-exposing-monsantos-attacks-family-farmers-refuse-submit-totalitarian-gmo-agriculture/
JohnyCanuck
(9,922 posts)Science must be defended against commercial interests that attempt to get important papers on GMOs and pesticides retracted rather than encouraging further research to clarify any uncertainties, says an important new peer-reviewed paper published in Environmental Sciences Europe.
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The authors of the new paper comment on this row, lamenting the growth of a trend in which disputes, between interest groups vying for retraction and republication of papers that report controversial results, overshadow the normal scientific process in which peer-reviewed publication stimulates new research, generating new empirical evidence that drives the evolution of scientific understanding.
The paper also reviews the research on the safety of NK603 maize and Roundup herbicide for human and livestock health. The authors analysis confirms that NK603 maize and Roundup are kidney and liver toxicants at levels below current regulatory thresholds and that consequently, the regulatory status of NK603, glyphosate and Roundup requires reevaluation.
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The paper represents a comprehensive summary of the gaping holes in the pro-GMO lobbys critiques of the Séralini study. Sadly, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) must consider itself part of this lobby. This is because EFSA followed the pro-GMO lobby in portraying the Séralini study as a failed carcinogenicity study, rather than what it really was a chronic toxicity study that unexpectedly found increased tumour and mortality incidence in treated rats and which must therefore be followed up with a dedicated carcinogenicity study using larger numbers of animals.
http://www.gmwatch.org/news/latest-news/16380-science-must-be-protected-from-commercial-interests
GreatGazoo
(3,937 posts)The US now imports non-GMO corn even as taxpayers pick up the tab (subsidizes) for the extra costs associated with GMO/Roundup corn and soy
http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/money/agriculture/2015/04/18/non-gmo-farming/25951693/
JohnyCanuck
(9,922 posts)An open letter signed by 30 scientists and other specialists (below) has yesterday been sent to the Scottish rural affairs minister Richard Lochhead in support of the announced Scottish ban on the cultivation of GM crops.
The signatories all hold doctorates, mainly in science or medicine. Another open letter, opposing the ban, had been sent on 17 August to the same Minister, signed on behalf of 28 universities, institutes, learned societies and other institutions, but no individual signatures were given.
This new letter cites evidence that professionals who have financial or career interests in a product are more likely to endorse it than are those without such interests. This bias is heightened in the case of GM, where it is spurred by the billions of corporate and funding dollars at stake. Examples are quoted of concerted attacks from scientists and others dependent on the industry upon scientists who have demonstrates harm from GM crops.
http://www.gmwatch.org/news/latest-news/16390-scientists-support-scottish-gm-crop-ban