Over 80 percent of Americans support "mandatory labels on foods containing DNA"

[alp227]

Once again, America becomes a laughingstock with science:

A recent survey by the Oklahoma State University Department of Agricultural Economics finds that over 80 percent of Americans support “mandatory labels on foods containing DNA,” about the same number as support mandatory labeling of GMO foods “produced with genetic engineering.” Oklahoma State economist Jayson Lusk has some additional details on the survey. If the government does impose mandatory labeling on foods containing DNA, perhaps the label might look something like this:

WARNING: This product contains deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA). The Surgeon General has determined that DNA is linked to a variety of diseases in both animals and humans. In some configurations, it is a risk factor for cancer and heart disease. Pregnant women are at very high risk of passing on DNA to their children.

The Oklahoma State survey result is probably an example of the intersection between scientific ignorance and political ignorance, both of which are widespread.The most obvious explanation for the data is that most of these people don’t really understand what DNA is, and don’t realize that it is contained in almost all food. When they read that a strange substance called “DNA” might be included in their food, they might suspect that this is some dangerous chemical inserted by greedy corporations for their own nefarious purposes.

[djean111]

1. I am going to go out on a limb and assume that this is seen as a great reason to not label

foods with GMOs.
Even though many of us do understand the difference between DNA and GMO.
No corporation ever inserted anything into any foodstuff for any reason except profit.

[Major Nikon]

4. Hydronium Hydroxide is sometimes added to processed foods

It can be fatal even in small doses and is routinely used as an industrial solvent.

[jberryhill]

27. It routinely causes asphyxiation

[Major Nikon]

39. Believe it or not there's a group opposing a ban

They also have close ties to other scorched earth organizations.

http://www.armory.com/~crisper/DHMO/

[proverbialwisdom]

45. More here on the general issue of safety of food additives.

OVERVIEW: http://www.pewhealth.org/projects/food-additives-project-85899367220

http://www.pewhealth.org/other-resource/pew-examines-gaps-in-toxicity-data-for-chemicals-allowed-in-food-85899493633

Aug 14, 2013
Project: Food Additives Project

The peer-reviewed journal Reproductive Toxicology published a paper from The Pew Charitable Trusts' food additives project examining the data used to make safety recommendations for chemicals added to food sold in the United States. The analysis of three major sources of toxicology information found significant gaps in the data for chemicals that are added to food and food packaging.

Pew’s analysis reveals:

* The Food and Drug Administration or industry decided that almost two-thirds of known additives were safe without having fed the additives to lab animals. This is based on Pew’s analysis of data reported in FDA, National Institutes of Health, or other leading toxicology databases.

* FDA’s own database on chemicals added directly to food indicates that:

Only one in five chemicals has been evaluated using the simplest lab animal test recommended by FDA to evaluate safety.

Only one in eight chemicals that FDA recommended be evaluated for reproductive or development problems had evidence it was tested for these effects.

* The lack of data means that often we don’t know whether these chemicals pose a health risk to the hundreds of millions of Americans who eat food with untested chemical additives.

The paper analyzed and compared data from the FDA’s Priority-based Assessment of Food Additives database, the Accelrys Toxicity Database of chemical studies, and the U.S. National Library of Medicine’s TOXLINE database to determine what testing has been done.

The authors note that the current regulatory structure for food additive safety in the United States was approved by Congress in 1958 and allows manufacturers to add chemicals deemed "generally recognized as safe" or "GRAS," to food without review by the FDA. Manufacturers sometimes voluntarily report such safety decisions to FDA.

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[Major Nikon]

50. Makes you wonder where they are hiding all the bodies

[proverbialwisdom]

59. Obviously not all illnesses are either acute or fatal + chronic diseases are exploding in the US.

Food allergies, autoimmune disorders of unknown etiology, diabetes, obesity, neurodevelopmental disorders, CANCER (review rBGH), more. Additional public health questions warranting research are identified in the PEW STUDY and by the NRDC.

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2000-09-03/news/0009030374_1_genetically-modified-new-proteins

http://world-wire.com/news/0911130001.html
http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/reports/rbgh-how-artificial-hormones-damage-the-dairy-industry-and-endanger-public-health/
http://thinkbeforeyoupink.org/past-campaigns/about/dairy-breast-cancer/

Sloppy, sorry. Gotta go.

[Major Nikon]

61. ...

[proverbialwisdom]

72. www.FoodDemocracyNow.org:"Dan Quayle & Michael Taylor's Nightmare Lives On - 20 years of GMO Policy"

GOOGLE: dan quayle biotech eg: http://www.businessweek.com/stories/1991-03-03/dan-quayles-guide-to-biotechnology

http://fooddemocracynow.org/blog/2012/may/29/dan_quayle_and_michael_taylors_nightmare_lives_on/

Dan Quayle and Michael Taylor's Nightmare Lives On: 20 years of GMO Policy that Keeps Americans in the Dark About Their Food

By Dave Murphy
Submitted by Food Democracy Now on May 29, 2012 - 10:53am

<>

Twenty years ago this week, then-Vice President Dan Quayle announced the FDA's policy on genetically engineered food as part of his "regulatory relief initiative." The policy, Quayle explained, was based on the idea that genetic engineering is no different than traditional plant breeding and therefore required no new regulations.

Five years earlier, then-Vice President George H.W. Bush visited a Monsanto lab for a photo-op with the developers of Roundup Ready crops. According to a video report of the meeting, when Monsanto executives worried about the approval process for their new crops, Bush laughed and told them, "Call me. We're in the dereg businesses. Maybe we can help."

And help he did - more than anyone could have ever imagined. Today, the politically motivated policy lives on, even though it contradicts modern scientific consensus.

How is it possible that the U.S. is making critical decisions about our food system with a decades-old policy that is at odds with global opinion? In a word: politics. As Quayle explained in the 1992 press conference, the American biotechnology industry would reap huge profits "as long as we resist the spread of unnecessary regulations."

Politics not Science Set the Agenda
Dan Quayle's 1992 policy announcement is premised on the notion that genetically engineered crops are "substantially equivalent" to regular crops and thus do not need to be labeled or safety tested. The policy was crafted by Michael Taylor, a former Monsanto lawyer who was hired by the Bush FDA to fill the newly created position of deputy commissioner of policy.

<>

In an ironic twist, the Obama administration appointed Michael Taylor as the deputy commissioner of foods in 2009, where he now oversees food safety policy for the federal government. Taylor's appointment was highly controversial, not only for crafting this pseudo-scientific policy, which laid the groundwork for helping GMOs avoid rigorous scientific testing and common-sense labeling, but also for his role in guiding the approval of Monsanto's genetically engineered synthetic hormone rBGH.

From the start, the policy of "substantial equivalence" had many critics. The concerns by the FDA's own scientists were summed up in a memo by FDA compliance officer Dr. Linda Kahl, who protested that the agency was "... trying to fit a square peg into a round hole . . . (by) trying to force an ultimate conclusion that there is no difference between foods modified by genetic engineering and foods modified by traditional breeding practices."

As Kahl wrote, "The processes of genetic engineering and traditional breeding are different, and according to the technical experts in the agency, they lead to different risks."

Memo: http://www.mindfully.org/GE/Dr-Linda-Kahl-FDA.htm

<>

Out of Step with World Opinion
Across the world, there is now agreement that genetically engineered foods are different from conventionally bred foods and that all genetically engineered foods should be required to go through safety assessments prior to approval.

These positions are spelled out by Codex Alimentarius, the food safety standards organization of the United Nations, which the World Trade Organization considers to be the global, science-based standards, and thus immune to trade challenges.

But, at present, none of the genetically engineered plants on sale in the United States can meet this global standard, because - unlike all other developed countries - the U.S. does not require safety testing of genetically engineered crops.

The U.S. stands nearly alone on the issue of labeling, too. More than 40 other countries require labeling of genetically engineered foods, including European Union member nations, Japan, Australia, Russia and even China, allowing consumers in those countries to make informed choices about whether or not to buy these foods. Yet we haven't been able to get labeling here in the U.S., thanks to Dan Quayle and Michael Taylor's deceptive policy.

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MORE: http://www.fooddemocracynow.org/blog

[jeff47]

5. Which GMOs?

Where would you like to draw the line on what is a GMO and what is not?

I presume you're wanting to label glyphosate-resistant crops. How about other crops?

What if the modifications just make the plant more drought-tolerant? Label or no?

Should plants with the Bt gene be labeled? The Bt gene occurs in a species of very common soil bacteria. It causes an insecticide effect. Do we need to label the plants that have Bt inserted? How should we label the crops that are sprayed with the Bt bacteria?

How about Golden Rice? It's had a gene inserted that causes it to produce vitamin A, a common malnutrition problem outside the developed world. Should that be labeled just like Round-Up ready crops? Or is the fact that the gene was inserted by a non-profit organization mean it's ok?

How about crops that are utterly artificial creations of mankind? Like corn. Yes, all corn is artificial. We took a plant that was only vaguely like corn, and turned it into a plant that can not survive without humans cultivating it. Without humans, ears of corn will not distribute the seeds widely, causing all of the offspring to grow in one place. And packed that close together none of them can grow healthy enough to reproduce. Label or no? After all, we modified the hell out of its genes.

Saying "This contains GMOs" doesn't actually tell you anything. To make a rational decision, you need to know what the modifications are. And have sufficient science education to understand what those modifications mean.

[djean111]

7. If the choices you are advocating are either NO GMO labeling or SOME GMO labeling,

then I have to go with ALL GMO labeling. After all, many people will just ignore the label anyway, but those of us who want to do a bit more research can use the information.
And - what may be harmful is certainly up for many interpretations. Who would be in charge of that? The FDA? Bwhahahaha!

Oh, and I do not buy corn or anything with corn products in it. Corn is a grain, not a vegetable, and as far as I am concerned, is just good for fattening meat animals. I pretty much only buy grass fed beef, when I can afford it.

[jeff47]

9. You do buy things with corn products in it.

We turn corn into a stunningly large variety of products. You've bought something with corn in it. The corn was converted into something else on the label, such as "dextrose" or "starch". Even if you eat nothing but fruits and vegetables, you've eaten something made with corn - corn products are commonly used to absorb moisture in long-term fruit storage.

That kinda demonstrates the problem with a blanket "GMO" label. It actually takes a lot of knowledge to understand what you're buying, and a lot of research to find out where the actual ingredients come from. But it didn't say "corn" so you assumed you didn't, and you're someone who claims greater knowledge of food than average.

Btw, do we need to label the fruits that were sprinkled with GMO corn starch to help keep them fresh? It'll probably come off when you wash the fruit, but it was there when you bought it.

[djean111]

12. Actually no, I do not.

For a while I was both very very poor, and was sticking to my low carb diet. My Quality Assurance background made me into quite the due diligence investigator!
No processed foods - and I now just do not want to eat anything from a box, and I do not buy cans, either.
When I look at a grocery sales circular, most of it does not come under my definition of "food".
I do know, though, how to interpret the ingredients on labels. You make a really condescending and incorrect assumption, there. Try and avoid the neener neener gotcha stuff, it is unbecoming, really.

[jeff47]

24. So you never eat fruit, huh?

Remember that comment about starch being used to control moisture?

Enjoy your corn.

[djean111]

40. Thanks for that, I will wash the fruit more thoroughly. You have been very helpful.

And I will do some more research, too!

[ND-Dem]

13. "It's had a gene inserted that causes it to produce vitamin A, a common malnutrition problem"

That's simply corporate BS. Retinol is commonly found in animal products and the carotenes are commonly found in vegetables and fruits. Humans can convert both to "vitamin A".

If populations aren't getting enough Vitamin A, it's generally because they are very poor and are thus forced to eat a diet with little variety. Such as a diet consisting mostly of RICE -- calories with not so many nutrients, Vitamin A being one of the missing ones.

The corporate "solution" is to let poor people continue eating a one-note diet, but to add some vitamins in the genome.

The human solution would be to stop allowing such extreme poverty.

[jeff47]

23. Yes, let's invade and bring them civilization. How'd that work last time?

We don't get to "allow" or "not allow" things in other countries. Yes, they shouldn't be so poor that they're eating almost nothing but rice, but we can't end their poverty from outside their country. We can fix small-scale problems, like an NGO digging a well. We can't rebuild an entire society without massive, forceful intervention.

Also, it's incredibly amusing that you think an NGO is a private corporation out to profit. Odd that they aren't demanding a high price for their product if they're such a profit-motivated corporation.

Anyway, I eagerly await your detailed plan about how we get other countries to eradicate poverty without using force, or making life even worse for the impoverished.

[ND-Dem]

29. of course we do. We're one of the reasons some people in other countries don't eat a varied diet.

"we can't end their poverty from outside their country"

But we can send them golden rice!!!

lol.

[jeff47]

34. Golden rice breeds with itself. You only need to give it to them once.

Last year's crop gets you next year's crop.

Again, what is your detailed plan for us to end poverty in those countries from the outside without using force?

[ND-Dem]

51. ironic. stop doing shit like this:

The 1954 Guatemalan coup d’état (18–27 June 1954) was a covert operation carried out by the United States Central Intelligence Agency that deposed the democratically elected President Jacobo Árbenz and ended the Guatemalan Revolution. Codenamed Operation PBSUCCESS, it installed the military regime of Carlos Castillo Armas, the first in a series of military dictators in the country.

Guatemala had been ruled since 1930 by the dictator General Jorge Ubico, supported by the United States government. His regime was one of the most brutally repressive military juntas in the history of Central America. In return for US support he gave hundreds of thousands of hectares of highly fertile land to the American United Fruit Company (UFCO), as well as allowing the US military to establish bases in Guatemala.[1][2][3][4][5] In 1944, Ubico's repressive policies resulted in a large popular revolt against him, led by students, intellectuals, and a progressive faction of the military. In what was later called the "October Revolution", Ubico was overthrown, resulting in Guatemala's first democratic election.[6]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1954_Guatemalan_coup_d'%C3%A9tat

[jeff47]

58. That's using force, and didn't get anyone out of poverty

While not deposing democratic governments can prevent juntas from taking over and causing poverty, that doesn't end poverty that is already present.

You claimed we could do that. So how do you get them out of poverty, from the outside, with no force?

[ND-Dem]

62. You must have missed my point: it's a major part of why they're *in* poverty.

Last edited Mon Jan 19, 2015, 02:20 AM - Edit history (1)

Guatemala has been a US fiefdom since forever.

The juntas didn't 'cause' poverty; the US government did and US business did. The juntas acted according to the will of the US government and players like United Fruit.

You seem to think there's some big mystery about why poverty exists. There's not, but putting vitamin A in rice won't do a damn thing to end it.

Golden rice is engineered to produce beta carotene.

Same thing that's in most green, red and orange vegetables and fruits like:

pumpkin, sweet potato, collard, spinach, turnip greens, kale, mustard greens, beet greens, chicory, cress, dandelion greens, parsley, chard; carrots, broccoli, peppers, peas, apricots, melons, cabbage, chives, various seaweeds, taro, various ferns, grape leaves, tomato, asparagus; various herbs like thyme and basil; grapefruit and celery; nopales (cactus), cherries, plums, brussel sprouts, mango, guava, oranges and tangerines, black-eyed peas and other legumes, plantains, alfalfa sprouts, peaches and nectarines, rhubarb, blackberries, cumin...

the list goes on and on.

Suffice to say that vitamin A deficiency is usually caused by 1) serious poverty and hunger, which is why VA deficiency today is most common in Africa and 2) disease/infection that depletes bodily stores of VA; another side effect of poverty and poor sanitation.

It's not like we don't already know how to fix the problem; supplementation is cheap as is fortification of foods like oil and sugar.

Genetic engineering rice with vitamin A to solve a deficiency disease is over-engineering.

[jeff47]

63. No, I understand your point. You're dodging the question.

The problem is there is poverty now. Unless you've invented a time machine, "don't install juntas" will not end poverty that currently exists.

You claimed we could end poverty in these countries where people subsist on rice. Without force. From the outside. How do we do that?

[ND-Dem]

68. Quit raping them.

[jeff47]

73. And that eliminates poverty by............?

Again, you made the claim that we could eliminate poverty from outside these countries without using force.

What's your plan, and how does it work?

[ND-Dem]

69. here. i wrote this for your codiscussant, but it will do for you too.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=6104821

Of course we 'allow' and 'don't allow' things in other countries. I believe that's what all the invasions and wars and covert actions of the last 100 years have been about, as well as all the puppets we've installed and bought.

Don't be disingenuous; we're all about massive, forceful intervention. It's a joke to pretend otherwise. We even intervened in Australia for god's sake. Our supposed ally.

I gave you my poverty reduction plan already.

[jeff47]

74. No, you said we shouldn't have made things worse in the past.

That's not a plan to make things better now that things are worse.

What is your plan to eliminate poverty in these countries from the outside without using force?

[Major Nikon]

66. Did you miss the part about how Golden Rice wasn't developed by any corporation?

Or were you too busy developing your False Dilemma?

[ND-Dem]

67. First, I never claimed it was "developed by a corporation". I said "the corporate solution is..."

You may read that as "golden rice was developed by a corporation" but that wasn't my meaning.

However, it is very much a 'corporate solution' which serves corporate interests, and things are more complex than the statement about "corporations not being involved" indicates. They're very much involved, just with layers of "plausible deniability." Corporate interests fund the research, the scientific institutes, etc, in their own interest, though they claim humanitarian motivations,

Syngenta has supported the Golden Rice project and is proud to be associated with it and the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), which is the lead developer of the project, along with the inventors in a continuing commitment of the project. We have agreed with IRRI when needed to support the regulatory and stewardship aspects of the project during its advanced development phase to help bring the project to a successful conclusion. Although Syngenta has a significant interest in seeing the humanitarian benefits from this technology become reality, we have no commercial interest in Golden Rice whatsoever. Golden Rice is an exclusively humanitarian project.

Background

Golden Rice was invented by Professor I. Potrykus, previously of the Institute for Plant Sciences, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich, and by Dr P. Beyer of the University of Freiburg, Germany. It is a gift to resource poor farmers and consumers in developing countries by these inventors.

Syngenta, the Syngenta Foundation for Sustainable Agriculture (SFSA) and both of Syngenta's legacy companies (Novartis and Zeneca) provided financial support and other resources to the inventors to support the development of Golden Rice for a period of time.


IRRI is now the lead developer of Golden Rice and is directly involved in breeding, capacity building, and safety research. IRRI has been working together, and continues to do so, with leading agriculture and nutrition research organizations such as the Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice), the Bangladesh Rice Research Institute (BRRI), and Helen Keller International (HKI) to evaluate Golden Rice as a potential new way to reduce vitamin A deficiency. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, the US Agency for International Development, and national governments are the current donors for the project.

http://www.syngenta.com/global/corporate/en/news-center/Pages/what-syngenta-thinks-about-full.aspx

Gerard Barry... spent more than 20 years in St. Louis working for Monsanto, the company that pioneered genetically engineered crops. He's listed as first inventor on some of Monsanto's most valuable patents. He found the gene that made crops immune to the weedkiller Roundup. That gene is now in soybeans, corn and cotton grown on hundreds of millions of acres.

But along the way, Barry also got interested in rice...Ten years ago, Barry left the corporate world and moved to the nonprofit International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines — the place where the idea of golden rice was born.His job is now to shepherd it down the home stretch to the finish line.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2013/03/07/173611461/in-a-grain-of-golden-rice-a-world-of-controversy-over-gmo-foods

(Potrykus') relationship with the biotech industry is a long-standing one. As a result of his research, he is named as 'inventor' and thus has interest in some thirty plant-related patents, most of them belonging to Syngenta/Novartis. Alert to the value of the PR bonanza arising from Golden Rice, the biotech industry was keen to help Potrykus get round the multiple impediments posed by the intellectual property rights (IPR) the industry posessed. Potrykus records how 'only (a) few days after the cover of "Golden Rice" had appeared on TIME Magazine, I had a phone call from Monsanto offering free licenses for the company's IPR involved. A really amazing quick reaction of the PR department to make best use of this opportunity.'

However, the PR exploitation of Golden Rice triggered a number of awkward questions. The journalist Michael Pollan, for instance, wrote in The New York Times magazine, 'A spokesman for Syngenta, the company that plans to give golden rice seeds to poor farmers, has said that every month of delay will mean another 50,000 blind children. Yet how many cases of blindness could be averted right now if the industry were to divert its river of advertising dollars to a few of these programs?' (ie existing, but less well publicised, programs for delivering Vitamin A)

http://www.lobbywatch.org/profile1.asp?PrId=105

Syngenta AG is a global Swiss agribusiness that markets seeds and agrochemicals. Syngenta is involved in biotechnology and genomic research. It was formed in 2000 by the merger of Novartis Agribusiness and Zeneca Agrochemicals. The company was ranked third in total seeds and biotechnology sales in 2009 in the commercial market.[2] Sales in 2013 were approximately US$ 14.7 billion. Syngenta employs over 28,000 people in over 90 countries. Over half of the sales are in Emerging Markets.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syngenta

In response to a report by Vandana Shiva, an Indian campaigner against GM foods, Rockefeller Foundation spokesman Gordon Conway said: "First it should be stated that we do not consider golden rice to be the solution to the vitamin A deficiency problem. Rather it provides an excellent complement to fruits, vegetables and animal products in diets, and to various fortified foods and vitamin supplements."

He said that for poor families lacking, for example, 10%, 20% or 50% of the required daily intake of vitamin A, golden rice could be useful, although even the best lines of rice produced by the bio-tech companies, reported in the journal Science, could contribute only 15% to 20% of the daily requirement.

He added: "I agree with Dr Shiva that the public relations uses of golden rice have gone too far.

http://www.theguardian.com/science/2001/feb/10/gm.food

[Major Nikon]

70. So since Bill Gates funds Golden Rice research, he must want to make money off the 3rd world

One must be quite deluded to think any aspect of an endeavor a corporation is involved in means the entire project is a "corporate solution".

Universities aren't in the rice production business. The developers of Golden Rice granted Sygenta license to produce the product on the condition that they can't charge a surcharge for the technology, which means Golden Rice will cost farmers in developing countries no more than conventional rice. Sygenta is NOT developing the rice for commercial sale.

http://www.goldenrice.org/Content1-Who/who4_IP.php

[ND-Dem]

71. out of all that, you pulled out gates? There's a web of interests involved, and not charging

"a surcharge" for golden rice is pretty irrelevant. And the rice *will* be sold commercially, just not with a "surcharge" for the gmo portion, as you've already acknowledged. Making money off golden rice specifically isn't the only interest possible for corporate interests.

Here are some of the funders for the "International Rice Research Institute," part of the web of interests involved in the development of Golden Rice.

•Arcadia (a GMO company)
•Bankers Association of Bangladesh (BAB)
•Bayer (Bayer crop science = GMO)
•DevGen (Syngenta company)
•ENERTIME (French energy company, including biomass)
•International Fertilizer Association (IFA)
•International Plant Nutrition Institute (IPNI)
•International Potash Institute (IPI)
•International Seed Testing Association (ISTA)
•Kellogg's (sponsor of anti-GMO labeling campaign in California)
•Mars Incorporated (sponsor of anti-GMO labeling campaign in California)
•Pioneer (largest US producer of hybrid seed and a GMO company. Owned by Dupont.)
•Sarmap (Partners with International Rice Research Institute and seems to do global surveillance and remote sensing)
•Syngenta

http://irri.org/about-us/our-funding

[Major Nikon]

76. Believe it or not you can send them a check and your name will be added to the list

I suppose that would make you just as evil as all those bad corporations who are making benevolent donations to a humanitarian cause.

Syngenta has already stated they will not be selling Golden Rice commercially, simply because there is no commercial interest in doing so. So your assertion that they "will" sell commercially is simply baseless conjecture. Even if they did sell it commercially, they couldn't do so poor farmers in developing nations per the terms of their license.

Syngenta has no commercial interest in Golden Rice in respect of its potential use or application in developing countries. Initially it was investigating a potential commercial use in developed countries, given the strong interest in antioxidants, but in the meantime it does not see a commercial market for it anymore. Nevertheless, the technology has been donated by the inventors and Syngenta to the resource-poor farmers of developing countries, and further development is now the responsibility of the Humanitarian Board and public institutes, which are the licensees. Golden Rice is being introduced into publicly-owned rice varieties via national and international public sector research institutions, to be made available by government institutions, free of charge, to resource-poor farmers. The farmers will then be able to grow, save, consume, replant and sell the resulting rice crop into the local economy. No new dependencies will be created.

http://www.goldenrice.org/Content3-Why/why3_FAQ.php#Commercial_interest

[ND-Dem]

77. if i send them a very BIG check, sure. but i'm not a 1%er, so i can't. wouldn't want to anyway.

you keep harping on the fact that the golden-rice-gang wants to give it away. I don't debate that; I just don't see it as a big argument for their unselfish motives, unlike yourself.

The farmers will pay for the rice; they just won't pay the 'surcharge' for the technology. Unless their governments or some NGO pays for the rice. But someone will pay, because someone always pays. Maybe you didn't quite understand, but I thought you did, as it was you who brought up the surcharge waiver.


Industries are in the business of develop and selling products. Thus, an industrial partner was sought that would agree to the humanitarian use of a product derived from the invention, apart from a commercial use. Such a partner was found with Syngenta, an agrichemicals and seeds company with headquarters in Switzerland. Syngenta was instrumental in converting the proof-of-concept results generated at the University of Freiburg and ETH Zurich into deliverable products. The collaboration was based on the understanding that Syngenta would retain commercial exclusivity for the technology, including large agricultural setups in developing countries while allowing its humanitarian use free of charge. .

In 2005 Syngenta decided not to go commercial with Golden Rice in developed countries, a main reason being that there is practically no vitamin A deficiency in such countries. and thus very little commercial interest, even though antioxidants are very fashionable, and provitamin A is such an antioxidant..


http://www.goldenrice.org/Content1-Who/who4_IP.php

[Major Nikon]

79. You claimed it was a "corporate solution" which is an assertion you have yet to support

It is and always was a humanitarian solution. One corporation donated a considerable amount of technology to the project. If you think they have selfish motives, what are those exactly? So far your best argument seems to be, 'they are a corporation so they must have evil intentions'. I admit, it's kinda hard to argue with that sort of 'logic'.

[ND-Dem]

80. I already responded to you about the "corporate solution". The technology is donated just

to this project; it's not a blanket donation of the technology.

Their intention is to push the technology, extend its market, and 'normalize' its use. They play a long game.

But if you prefer to think of them as wonderful humanitarians, so be it. However, even the Rockefeller Foundation has walked back a lot of the overblown claims for the usefulness of Golden Rice.

If the corporation in question wants to donate something that would do more to end vitamin-a deficiency in the third world, there are a lot of things it could donate that would do it better, faster, and cheaper than golden rice.

But those things wouldn't further their long game.

[Major Nikon]

81. I'm not convinced ending world poverty is a "faster" and "cheaper" option

So perhaps you can explain how that works.

[ND-Dem]

83. By faster and cheaper options, i'm referring to the use of fortified oils, fortified sugar, and

vitamin supplements.

Technology that already exists, proven results, distribution networks in place, cost accounting already done, etc.

[Major Nikon]

85. All of those options are far more expensive, and it's not even close

The propaganda you are promoting is both outdated and just plain wrong

The New York Times Magazinereported in 2001 that one would need to “eat 15 pounds of cooked golden rice a day” to get enough vitamin A. What was an exaggeration then is demonstrably wrong now. Two recent studies in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition show that just 50 grams (roughly two ounces) of golden rice can provide 60% of the recommended daily intake of vitamin A. They show that golden rice is even better than spinach in providing vitamin A to children.

Opponents maintain that there are better ways to deal with vitamin A deficiency. In its latest statement, Greenpeace says that golden rice is “neither needed nor necessary,” and calls instead for supplementation and fortification, which are described as “cost-effective.”

To be sure, handing out vitamin pills or adding vitamin A to staple products can make a difference. But it is not a sustainable solution to vitamin A deficiency. And, while it is cost-effective, recent published estimates indicate that golden rice is much more so.

Supplementation programs costs $4,300 for every life they save in India, whereas fortification programs cost about $2,700 for each life saved. Both are great deals. But golden rice would cost just $100 for every life saved from vitamin A deficiency.

http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/the-costs-of-opposing-gm-foods-by-bj-rn-lomborg

Anti-GMO organizations are spending millions on disseminating Golden Rice false propaganda. To use your economic argument, why aren't they spending that money buying and distributing vitamin supplements?

Most ironic is the self-fulfilling critique that many activists now use. Greenpeace calls golden rice a “failure,” because it “has been in development for almost 20 years and has still not made any impact on the prevalence of vitamin A deficiency.” But, as Ingo Potrykus, the scientist who developed golden rice, has made clear, that failure is due almost entirely to relentless opposition to GM foods – often by rich, well-meaning Westerners far removed from the risks of actual vitamin A deficiency.

[ND-Dem]

86. 1) I said nothing about how much rice you'd have to eat to get some effect. I noted, however,

that the Rockefeller foundation spokesman doesn't think golden rice has a major contribution to make to the problem of VA deficiency -- at least according to reports from mainstream newspapers.


2)

*A single 200,000 I.U. dose of vitamin A, delivered every four to six months at a cost of less than 50 cents a year, may be enough to protect a young child against vitamin A deficiency and the threat of nutritional blindness and death. That is one conclusion of an SCN policy discussion paper on the prevention of vitamin A deficiency, published in June 1987.

http://www.unsystem.org/scn/archives/scnnews01/ch1.htm (United Nations Standing Committee on Nutrition)

BACKGROUND:

Twenty-eight percent of Ugandan preschool children suffer from vitamin A deficiency. With vitamin A supplementation covering only a third of children under 5 years of age, fortification is essential to reduce their vitamin A deficiency-related disease burden. At present, the only widely consumed food in Uganda that is fortified with vitamin A is vegetable oil...

RESULTS:

The annual incremental private sector cost of vitamin fortification is US $555,668 for oil and US $2,644,765 for sugar. Assuming that oil and sugar fortification are both effective in reducing vitamin A deficiency by 30% among those who consume these foods, the estimated cost per disability-adjusted life year (DALY) averted is US $82 for sugar and US $18 for oil. Vitamin A fortification of vegetable oil is 4.6 times more cost-effective than vitamin A fortification of sugar.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20707225

BACKGROUND:

Vitamin A deficiency (VAD) is an important nutritional problem in India, resulting in an increased risk of severe morbidity and mortality. Periodic, high-dose vitamin A supplementation is the WHO-recommended method to prevent VAD, since a single dose can compensate for reduced dietary intake or increased need over a period of several months...

METHODOLOGY:

Recent advancements in biotechnology permit alternative strategies for increasing the vitamin A content of common foods...

PRINCIPAL FINDINGS:

We found that all three interventions potentially avert significant numbers of DALYs and deaths. Expanding vitamin A supplementation to all areas was the least costly intervention, at $23-$50 per DALY averted and $1,000-$6,100 per death averted, though cost-effectiveness varied with prevailing health subcenter coverage. GM fortification could avert 5 million-6 million more DALYs and 8,000-46,000 more deaths, mainly because it would benefit the entire population and not just children. However, the costs associated with GM fortification were nearly five times those of supplementation.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20706590


But of course the best solution would be to end poverty, since hunger and starvation start a vicious cycle of reduced ability to absorb food and nutrients, meaning at some point choice of intervention becomes kind of moot.

Corporate shills don't seem too interested in that though.

PS: please let me know if these journal cites are "anti-GMO propaganda" cause there's a ton more just like them in MEDLINE. I'm sure I can find something for you.

Does the world health org distribute anti-gmo propaganda too, btw? and the UN?

[ND-Dem]

92. Oh & PS: Bjorn Lomborg is a *political* scientist, not a science scientist.

Actually, he's a shill for business interests.

After the publication of The Skeptical Environmentalist, Lomborg was formally accused of scientific dishonesty by a group of environmental scientists, who brought a total of three complaints against him to the Danish Committees on Scientific Dishonesty (DCSD), a body under Denmark's Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation (MSTI). Lomborg was asked whether he regarded the book as a "debate" publication, and thereby not under the purview of the DCSD, or as a scientific work; he chose the latter, clearing the way for the inquiry that followed.[7] The charges claimed that The Skeptical Environmentalist contained deliberately misleading data and flawed conclusions. Due to the similarity of the complaints, the DCSD decided to proceed on the three cases under one investigation.

In January, 2003, the DCSD released a ruling that sent a mixed message, finding the book to be scientifically dishonest through misrepresentation of scientific facts, but Lomborg himself not guilty due to his lack of expertise in the fields in question:[8] That February, Lomborg filed a complaint against the decision with the MSTI, which had oversight over the DCSD. In December, 2003, the Ministry annulled the DCSD decision, citing procedural errors, including lack of documentation of errors in the book, and asked the DCSD to re-examine the case. In March 2004, the DCSD formally decided not to act further on the complaints, reasoning that renewed scrutiny would, in all likelihood, result in the same conclusion.[7][9]

In March 2002, the newly elected center-right prime minister, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, appointed Lomborg to run Denmark's new Environmental Assessment Institute (EAI).

Scientific American published strong criticism of Lomborg's book...

The Union of Concerned Scientists strongly criticised The Skeptical Environmentalist...The review was conducted by Peter Gleick, Jerry D. Mahlman, Edward O. Wilson, Thomas Lovejoy, Norman Myers, Jeff Harvey, and Stuart Pimm...

Hey, but Penn & Teller gave him space and so did The Economist & Rolling Stone, he must be a good source!

[Major Nikon]

94. Sure, everyone who disagrees with Greenpeace is a "shill for business interests"

Along with other environmentalists who have changed their mind over GMOs, you can include in your list of "shill[s] for business interests one of the co-founders of Greenpeace.

So yeah, I've heard that one before and I just don't find it that effective of an argument. YMMV.

You didn't bother to source where you came up with the ad hominem attack against Lomborg. I'm pretty sure you got it from Wiki because it's word for word there, and it's probably also a safe bet that the reason you didn't source it was because directly underneath it you'll find this little jewel:

Response of the scientific community[edit]
The original DCSD decision about Lomborg provoked a petition[10] among Danish academics. 308 scientists, many of them from the social sciences, criticised the DCSD's methods in the case and called for the DCSD to be disbanded.[11] The Danish Minister of Science, Technology, and Innovation then asked the Danish Research Agency (DRA) to form an independent working group to review DCSD practices.[12] In response to this, another group of Danish scientists collected over 600 signatures, primarily from the medical and natural sciences community, to support the continued existence of the DCSD and presented their petition to the DRA.[11]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bj%C3%B8rn_Lomborg

So yeah, great sources.



Interestingly the best rhetort you could come up with to challenge those figures was from a study that only considered one very small country with a relatively well established infrastructure and even if you run with those figures for the entire rest of the undeveloped world (which would be ridiculous), you still come up with a cost that is far more expensive than Golden Rice.

Another reality you simply ignore is that fortification doesn't work for countries that use little or none of those staples. For instance, sugar is a luxury product for most of the undeveloped world and is out of the reach of vast poor populations. From your own reference, fortification (if it were even practical for everyone and it ain't) would only reduce the vitamin A deficiency by 30%, compared to 60% for Golden Rice. Rice is routinely consumed by over half of the world's population.

So your "cheaper" and "better" argument seems to be falling flat even if you go with your own air-tight sources.

[ND-Dem]

95. Not sourcing it was my oversight. my apologies. Lombord is still a political scientist, not an

actual scientist, and a well-known shill for corporate interests.

Interestingly, the only cost figures you gave come from lomborg; I didn't notice that he sourced his claims, nor did you.

the scientific papers (not political science papers) I cited give sources. I copied the abstracts.

don't like those? there are plenty more.

Even the folks paying for the development of golden rice, (the Rockefeller fund) quote much lower figures than 60%.

It doesn't matter how much of the world's population eats rice; it matters how much of the rice-eating population is VA deficient. And most of it isn't. Africa is the area with the highest % of VA deficiency. Depending on the area, there are plenty of naturally high VA foods that would be equally, or more culturally appropriate. And they wouldn't have to be genetically engineered either.

[Major Nikon]

96. "well known" by whom?

The anti-GMO lobby?


I'm not going to get roped into any ad hominem fallacies about Lomborg other than to identify them as such.


The paper you quoted was for Uganda and sugar which is the cheapest method and arguably one of the cheapest countries to implement. The country is relatively flat and has roads which effectively cover the entire country.

But let's just go with those figures and pretend they are representative of the rest of the world when they certainly ain't. The costs are still higher than Golden Rice and still aren't as effective, so your "better" and "cheaper" argument still fails even with your own (lacking) data.

The article you keep parroting about the Rockefeller Foundation quote is about 14 years old and doesn't reflect improvements to the product so it's a bit curious why you would keep repeating it over and over. Here's what a more recent peer reviewed study has to say about the subject:

...we speculate that 50 g uncooked Golden Rice, which is a reasonable serving size for children aged 4–8 y in rice-eating regions, who eat ?130–200 g rice/d (25), would be able to provide >90% of vitamin A EAR (275 ?g retinol/d) or >60% of the RDA (400 ?g retinol/d) (24).

http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/89/6/1776.long

Good luck claiming the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition is a shill for corporate interests.

[proverbialwisdom]

48. 'The Black Swan' author Nassim Nicholas Taleb & team prove risks of GMOs are severely underestimated

https://medium.com/the-physics-arxiv-blog/genetically-modified-organisms-risk-global-ruin-says-black-swan-author-e8836fa7d78

The Physics arXiv Blog on Oct 27, 2014

Experts have severely underestimated the risks of genetically modified food, says a group of researchers lead by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

It is 20 years since the FDA approved the Flavr Savr tomato for human consumption, the first genetically engineered food to gain this status. Since then, genetically modified food has become a significant part of the human diet in many parts of the world, particularly in the US. In 2013 roughly 85 per cent of corn and 90 per cent of soybeans produced in the US were genetically modified.

Given the ubiquity of this kind of foodstuff, you could be forgiven for thinking that the scientific debate over its safety has been largely settled. It is certainly true that a large number of scientists seem to take that view. In 2012, for example, the American Association for the Advancement of Science declared that genetically modified crops pose no greater risk than the same foods made from crops modified by conventional plant breeding techniques.

Today, Nassim Nicholas Taleb at New York University and a few pals say that this kind of thinking vastly underestimates the threat posed by genetically modified organisms. “Genetically modified organisms represent a public risk of global harm,” they say. Consequently, this risk should be treated differently from those that only have the potential for local harm. “The precautionary principle should be used to prescribe severe of limits on genetically modified organisms,” they conclude.

Taleb and co begin by making a clear distinction between risks with consequences that are local and those with consequences that have the potential to cause global ruin. When global harm is possible, an action must be avoided unless there is scientific near-certainty that it is safe. This approach is known as the precautionary principle.

The question, of course, is when the precautionary principle should be applied. Taleb and co begin by saying that their aim is to place the precautionary principle within a formal statistical structure that is grounded in probability theory and the properties of complex systems. “Our aim is to allow decision-makers to discern which circumstances require the use of the precautionary principle and in which cases evoking the precautionary principle is inappropriate.”

Their argument begins by dividing potential harm into two types. The first is localised and non-spreading. The second is propagating harm that results in irreversible and widespread damage. Taleb and co say that traditional decision-making strategies focus on the first type of risk where the harm is localised and the risk is easy to calculate from past data.

In this case, it is always possible to make a mistake when decision-making about risk. The crucial point is that when the harm is localised, the potential danger from a miscalculation is bounded.

<>

They go on to consider numerous other fallacies that confuse the issue over whether to use the precautionary principle or not. The central point in most of these is whether the risk involved is one of global ruin or local ruin.

That is an interesting contribution to the debate over genetically modified organisms, which has become becalmed in recent years. While the argument itself is interesting, the fact that the lead author, Nassim Nicholas Taleb is such a high profile commentator on risk is bound to raise the profile of the debate. The co-authors include a number of other well-known researchers such as Raphael Douady at the Institute of Mathematics and Theoretical Physics in Paris and Yaneer Bar-Yam at the New England Complex Systems Institute in Cambridge.

http://www.fooledbyrandomness.com

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B8nhAlfIk3QIbGFzOXF5UUN3N2c/edit?pli=1

[jeff47]

60. I can write a book saying anything I like.

Doesn't make it accurate. And the more danger I predict, the more copies of my books I'll sell.

You'll note they spend a very, very, very, very, very long time talking about kinds of risks, but spend almost no time talking about what the actual risk is. It's kinda a 'tell'.

They claim the risk is due to 1) monocultures and 2) unknown protein interactions.

1) already happens with existing crops. That's why the Irish potato famine happened, for fuck's sake. To pretend this is new with GMOs is utterly and completely wrong. But it sounds scary.

2) Proteins are converted into amino acids very efficiently by digestion. We don't absorb proteins, we absorb amino acids. So how does the protein get into our bloodstream intact? They don't quite get around to saying....

Also, unknown protein interactions would fail their "can't be done by natural selection" test. Nightshade vs. Tomato, for example.

[Major Nikon]

64. Certainly they proved it to themselves

You do realize none of those authors have any background whatsoever in genetics or anything remotely resembling food science, yes?

Taleb also prefers name calling to anything remotely resembling debate over his conclusions, none of which were peer reviewed to begin with. Hard to take someone like that seriously and I don't think too many who are competent on the subject do either.

[goldent]

10. Practically no farmer has ever grown any foodstuff for any reason except profit.

The bastards! How stupid do they think we are?

[ND-Dem]

14. I'm fairly sure that most people who answered the poll were thinking of GMOs.

But of course the "scientific" brigade will use the mistake to revile those who answered the survey, dispute the results, and force what people don't want on them.

Only smart folks like the science brigade have any rights to opinions or democracy.

[LostOne4Ever]

16. Well the people want labels on food w/DNA in it obviously... (nt)

[center]


[/center]

[NuclearDem]

21. If people are scientifically illiterate enough to confuse DNA with GMO

then maybe they shouldn't be the ones making that decision.

[ND-Dem]

30. Yes, let the 'smart' people tell them what to do.

[NuclearDem]

37. Sorry, science isn't democratic.

[jeff47]

41. Fucking science. Always telling us what is instead of what we want to be. (nt)

[ND-Dem]

53. so what? are you recommending we replace what's left of democracy with the dictat of the

technicians?

[NuclearDem]

54. No, I'm saying people don't get to vote on what reality is and isn't.

Putting the decisions behind GMOs in the hands of people who don't know them from DNA is as fucking stupid as making a climate change denier like Inhofe chair of the environment subcommittee.

[ND-Dem]

56. a lot of those same people don't know much about vitamins and minerals either, but we have food

labels regardless.

but I agree, lets let agribusiness corporations make consumer law. the certainly know what's best for us moronic citizens.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

97. As opposed to giving equal weight to informed and uninformed opinion? N.T.

[ND-Dem]

98. so said those who took the vote from blacks in the south. "They're too stupid and uniformed to

be listened to."

So say elites everywhere, fancying themselves the crown of creation.

[proverbialwisdom]

42. January 15, 2015: "Tyrone Hayes on crooked science and why we should shun GMOs"

http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php/news/archive/2015-articles/15881-tyrone-hayes-on-crooked-science-and-why-we-should-shun-gmos

Tyrone Hayes on crooked science and why we should shun GMOs
Scientist who exposed the dangers of atrazine explains how scientists get corrupted and how the GMO industry is really the agrochemicals industry

17 January 2015



This interview with Tyrone Hayes, the scientist who exposed the dangers of Syngenta’s pesticide atrazine, is worth reading in full. He covers GMOs at the end.

http://www.treehugger.com/sustainable-agriculture/tyrone-hayes-misfortune-frogs-crooked-science-and-why-we-should-shun-gmos.html

Tyrone Hayes on the misfortune of frogs, crooked science and why we should shun GMOs

Melissa Breyer (@MelissaBreyer)
Science / Sustainable Agriculture
January 15, 2015

The life and work of biologist Dr. Tyrone B. Hayes, PhD, reads like the script of a Hollywood blockbuster: Scientist whistleblower takes on global agribusiness responsible for environmental havoc; a web of lies, corporate shenanigans, and mystery ensues. So it’s somehow fitting that Oscar-winning director Jonathan Demme took on Hayes’ story for a segment in the Amazon Original TV series pilot, "The New Yorker Presents."

Co-produced by Jigsaw Productions and Conde Nast Entertainment, "The New Yorker Presents" is a nifty collection of vignettes in which pieces from the The New Yorker magazine – from fiction to poetry to non-fiction and beyond – have been recast as short films. In the segment on Hayes, Demme brings to life Rachel Aviv’s article about the biologist. Aviv's story becomes Demme's launching point into the investigation of the curious case of frogs changing genders and other deleterious effects of the herbicide atrazine on our ecosystem – told through the lens of Hayes’ life story and his enduring crusade to educate people about the dangers of this widely-used chemical.

We had the good fortune to talk to Hayes, here’s how it played out:

TreeHugger: (Sparing you the warm-up chitchat and cutting straight to the chase here.) So first of all, can you tell us about what led you to a career in amphibians and biology in general?

Tyrone Hayes: I was born and raised in South Carolina; I lived there until I was 18 years old. My interest in amphibians and the environment and in biology has been with me since I was a young child. I spent a lot of time in the swamps in South Carolina, both in and around my neighborhood and my grandmother’s house, but also in what’s now Congaree Swamp.

After South Carolina I moved to Harvard. I was a biology major there and I continued working with amphibians as an undergraduate and did my thesis on environmental regulation and effects on development and growth in amphibians. After graduating Harvard I came to Berkeley in 1989 for my PhD, where I again studied the role of environment and effects on amphibians and the role of hormones in development. Shortly after obtaining my PhD, I started a professorship at Berkeley where I continued to study amphibians and branched out into studying environmental chemical contaminants that interfere with hormones. At that stage I was hired by Syngenta to study atrazine and that's what the film is about.

TH: It seems kind of crazy that Syngenta sought you out; an expert in the field for a product that clearly had problems. Were the findings a surprise to them? Did they know what they had on their hands or was it a coincidence that they happened to come to you?

HAYES: No. They knew what the compounds did and I think that by hiring scientists ahead of any independent group or any government agency, they then had control over the data and how the data would be presented – or`whether the data got presented at all – and how much of the data got to the EPA. Individuals within the organization certainly knew about atrazine’s endocrine disrupting properties, from conversations that I had when we started the work. I think the goal was to be in control of the finances and the research and the data.

I don’t think it was a surprise at all. If you read some of their own handwritten documents that have been released, there are other chemicals in their arsenal, so to speak, that they know have environmental health and public health problems. They know that as the compounds are being released. So, for example, they replaced atrazine with a chemical in Europe [the European Union announced a ban of atrazine in 2003 because of ubiquitous and unpreventable water contamination] called terbuthylazine. And in the same year that terbuthylazine became available in Europe you see in their handwritten notes that it's more active than atrazine, it causes the same problems as atrazine; it causes testicular cancer and a number of other similar problems that may be associated with atrazine.

TH: It’s remarkable not only that they would seem to lack concern about the environmental and health effects, but also the hubris of fearlessly bringing these chemicals to the attention of enlightened researchers. Is this typical?

HAYES: I think what they do, in my experience, is they prey on young scientists. I was an up-and-coming scientist at the time, a brand new assistant professor and I didn't have tenure. What they can offer, especially in this funding climate, is a significant amount of funding to a young scientist and the promise of funding for life. They have control over that science and control over the career of a scientist, but the scientist will still have their own independent reputation. So for example, if I worked my way up through the ranks at Berkeley with their funding I would be free to really do any kind of science I want, and at the same time they'd have control over the science I was producing relative to their product.

So it's not much of a surprise with a chemical like atrazine that eventually a lot of people started to study it, but as long as they had control, they had some control on how it was regulated and what information became available.

<>

TH: So you’ve obviously distanced yourself from the company, but how was it when you were actually working for them?

HAYES: At first it was a little bit strange, I was a brand new assistant professor, I had never really been hired as a consultant and I didn't know how it worked or what it meant and I treated it just like I would any other academic pursuit. I assumed they really wanted the information. We did literature reviews, we wrote papers, some of the scientists there seemed respectable. But some of the other scientists seemed like they were really out to say whatever the company wanted them to say for money … I heard people use the term "biostitutes." I watched scientists who knew better – who I know knew better – say “oh yeah this is safe, oh yeah this doesn’t mean anything” or perform experiments very poorly on purpose, or so it seemed to me.

It really became clear that some of these guys would just do poor experiments over and over again to get the results that the company wanted and then continue to be paid. So I started to become skeptical about whether or not I wanted my name associated, and worried about my reputation. Then when they actually started to bury data and manipulate my data and play these kinds of games, then I knew it was not a situation that I wanted to be involved in. I've said before, I could have stayed home and been a drug dealer or a pimp, I didn't need to get a PhD to do that kind of work!

I realized I've got a conscience and a sense of ethics that just won't allow me to operate that way. In a more practical way, I went to Harvard on scholarship. So somebody paid for me to go to school, and now I can't turn around and take money to do something like that.

<>

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/02/10/a-valuable-reputation
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024479039

[proverbialwisdom]

44. Tyrone Hayes + Penelope Jagessar Chaffer: "The Toxic Baby"

Feb 11

Hear Tyrone Hayes discuss #Syngenta attacks with @kvetchingguru http://b4uleap.org/2013/07/29/when-corporations-attack/ and watch our talk http://on.ted.com/ToxicBaby #tedtalks

http://www.ted.com/talks/tyrone_hayes_penelope_jagessar_chaffer_the_toxic_baby.html

Tyrone Hayes + Penelope Jagessar Chaffer: The toxic baby
FILMED DEC 2010 • POSTED FEB 2012 • TEDWomen 2010

Filmmaker Penelope Jagessar Chaffer was curious about the chemicals she was exposed to while pregnant: Could they affect her unborn child? So she asked scientist Tyrone Hayes to brief her on one he studied closely: atrazine, a herbicide used on corn. (Hayes, an expert on amphibians, is a critic of atrazine, which displays a disturbing effect on frog development.) Onstage together at TEDWomen, Hayes and Chaffer tell their story.

Tyrone Hayes studies frogs and amphibians -- and the effects on their bodies of common farming chemicals. Full bio »

Penelope Jagessar Chaffer made the film "Toxic Baby," exploring environmental toxins through interviews and surreal imagery. Full bio »

http://b4uleap.org/2013/07/29/when-corporations-attack/

When Corporations Attack
July 29, 2013

Eveline Lubbers studies corporate campaigns to undermine human rights and environmental activists. We speak to her, and to Dr. Tyrone Hayes, who has been the subject of attacks by a leading pesticide company after his studies showed that their blockbuster chemical feminizes male frogs.

<>

[adirondacker]

55. +1000. Thanks for posting this! nt

[ND-Dem]

57. Oh no, he can't be a scientist. He disagrees with the prevailing "wisdom" and all the "scientists"

here at DU. The ones who are ever-so-much-more-clever than those ordinary citizens who didn't get the terminology right in a poll (even though what they meant and wanted was pretty clear).

Those DU scientists, by virtue of their superior intelligences, maintain the right to mock their inferiors in the nastiest ways possible, and would like to be in charge of making choices for those they consider stupider than they are.

Sounds familiar...

[foo_bar]

2. they should label stuff that doesn't contain DNA, like Hot Pockets

[hifiguy]

3. I swear you can actually hear

this country getting dumber by the second.

[jeff47]

6. Link to the study

http://agecon.okstate.edu/faculty/publications/4975.pdf

DNA results are on page 4.

[ProdigalJunkMail]

8. hell, people in this country, if polled,

would overwhelmingly reject the use of oxidane (also known as di-hydrogen monoxide) because, in certain amounts, it can be lethal.

sP

[ND-Dem]

87. Not if you called it water. But of course, if the intent is to "prove" that most people are stupid,

and therefore their "betters" need to tell them what to do, well...

call it by a scientific name they're unfamiliar with.

Plenty of scientists in the third reich and the US eugenics movement too. 'Science' told us homosexuality was a disease. 'Science' told us black people & jews had low IQs (and to some extent is still telling us that about blacks.) Do you pick and chose among the 'scientists' you support?

Or do you, like some, pretend that those historical episodes of 'bad science' were never supported by 'real' scientists or the 'real' scientific establishment at all?

It's a crock of nonsense.

[ProdigalJunkMail]

88. that is what was done in the article...

the point is people are woefully unfamiliar with science in even it's most basic forms. my eight year old knows what dihydrogen monoxide is. she knows what the prefix di- and mon- both mean and while it might take her a second, she would figure it out. oxidane would be not be something she's familiar with but that is why i included a more basic chemical name.

oh, and i love how you attempt to conflate eugenics with chemistry... WOW.

sP

[ND-Dem]

89. i don't know many 8 year olds who know what dihydrogen monoxide is. I'd guess we live in

different zipcodes.

Which brings us back to the root problem.

I didn't conflate eugenics with chemistry, I included it as an example of what was once considered 'science'. With its own 'research labs' and everything.

Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) is a private, non-profit institution with research programs focusing on cancer, neuroscience, plant genetics, genomics and quantitative biology.

The institution took root as The Biological Laboratory in 1890... In 1904, the Carnegie Institution of Washington established the Station for Experimental Evolution at Cold Spring Harbor on an adjacent parcel. In 1921, the station was reorganized as the Carnegie Institution Department of Genetics.

Between 1910 and 1939, the laboratory was the base of the Eugenics Record Office of biologist Charles B. Davenport and his assistant Harry H. Laughlin, two prominent American eugenicists of the period. Davenport was director of the Carnegie Station from its inception until his retirement in 1934. In 1935 the Carnegie Institution sent a team to review the ERO's work, and as a result the ERO was ordered to stop all work. In 1939 the Institution withdrew funding for the ERO entirely, leading to its closure.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_Spring_Harbor_Laboratory
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Davenport
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_H._Laughlin

Harvard & Princeton 'science' PhDs, too. Biology and cytology.

Many idiocies and crimes that used to be considered 'science' have been stuffed into the dustbin of history, hopefully forever.

Privileging science is idiocy; it can be used for evil ends just as anything else can.

[ProdigalJunkMail]

90. once considered science...

so, you are suggesting that chemistry is wrong or will be proven wrong in its description of water or its chemical makeup? chemistry is NOT anything like eugenics or psychology... so your analogy falls apart on that and your question to me about what selective science i choose to embrace is proof of your intent to conflate the two.

if you feel that chemistry will go the way of eugenics i feel sorry for your understanding of what chemistry is... especially something as simple as the makeup of water.

sP

[ND-Dem]

91. what i feel sorry for is people who'd have the public believe that questions of public policy are

all about some neutral 'science' or 'chemistry'.

PS: chemists aren't the only scientists in the GMO industry or in research. FYI.


From the MIT Technology Review:

Are GMOs Worth the Trouble?

Many are eager to trot out GMOs as the answer to our food problems. But lower-tech alternatives work better.

http://www.technologyreview.com/view/525931/are-gmos-worth-the-trouble/

[ProdigalJunkMail]

99. Sorry. You lost me...

I have no idea what the linkages are between the conversation we were having and whatever the hell the rambling us about.

[ND-Dem]

100. ok.

[AZ Progressive]

11. I have only one thing to show

[Avalux]

15. Wow, that is really disturbing.

An uninformed populace is a populace in slavery - George Washington.

I would say that's where we're headed, but I think we're already there. I'm not sure there's any way to turn it around.

[Curmudgeoness]

17. "don’t realize that it is contained in almost all food"

"Almost all food"??? I am afraid to ask what they are feeding us that does not contain DNA.

[Rainforestgoddess]

18. salt

[Curmudgeoness]

19. OK, you got me.

And there is a lot of that in our food.

[Rainforestgoddess]

20. I live for the Curmudgeoness 'gotcha'!

[ND-Dem]

31. koolaid

[Curmudgeoness]

38. I think that I will end up being grossed out

by the things people come up with in answer to my question. Ugh.

[Major Nikon]

65. Water

[Curmudgeoness]

75. You can stop now.

This got me thinking of how many things we are eating that are just chemical compounds, and it is beginning to trouble me. I am remembering organic chemistry class and all the chemicals that are used for "artificial flavoring". I had blocked that out of my mind.

Not that water is disgusting.

[jeff47]

82. Pedantic mode on!!

Unless it's distilled water, most likely it has DNA in it. From the bacteria and other microorganisms in the water.

[Major Nikon]

84. True, but if you want to get into ppb, you can say that about practically everything

Including distilled water which will inevitably be contaminated with something as soon as it's exposed to the environment. However, I don't think such DNA is contributing much nutritionally to the ingredient.

[TheKentuckian]

22. Clumsily phrased but I think folks want to know if their pears are spliced with spiders

or if their chicken is now new and improved with pork or rattlesnake is in the quinoa.

Why this is such an unforgivably absurd a request to some I can't imagine.
Rather than to explain why we don't care (possibly because it isn't going to happen?) the argument has become basically that we're all just too stupid to know. That is probably not the most marketable missionary mission material, fair or not.

Maybe "recalibrate" those talking points a bit make the old golden path a bit more accessible while not retreating to a position of actively encouraging ignorance which is not scientific thinking I'm comfortable or familiar with, it comes off as disingenuous or worse, in my opinion.

[jeff47]

33. Because "this contains GMOs" doesn't actually tell you much.

In order to make a decision, you'd have to know what kind of modifications.

Pretend we're talking about a label that says "this contains sugar". There's a couple dozen sugars in food. Each have a different effect in the human body - for example, some people can't digest lactose (sugar in milk) but they can easily digest sucrose (table sugar). Heck, the two different shapes of fructose taste different. There's also radically different concentrations in food. But an apple would need a sugar label just as much as a Pop-Tart.

Saying "this has GMOs" doesn't actually give you the information you would need to make an informed decision, and we have been woefully inadequate at basic science education. That results in easily-manipulated people responding to slogans. After all, the hot new "all-natural" sweetener is actually 100% man-made, but its manufacturer (Cargill) says it's natural so people buy it.

What if the "GMO" means the plant doesn't have to drain CA's aquifers so much? Some people who oppose "Round-Up ready" plants would like to help make droughts not so bad. There's also a lot of research at adding nitrogen-fixing rhizomes to plants that don't normally have them, because then those plants don't need fertilizer and all the problems that causes. But all these foods get the same GMO label.

Also, there isn't a clear-cut line for "this is GMO" and "this is not GMO". Up higher in the thread I gave the example of corn. All corn is a man-made organism. We created corn by modifying the hell out of corn's DNA, so much so that corn can not survive without us. We just didn't know we were modifying its DNA at the time.

There's also lots of cases where a virus or similar changes the organism. Is that GMO? Humans didn't make the modifications happen, but it isn't the same genome as the "natural" creature.

Lines in biology are not easy to draw. Something always crosses the line. We can't even draw a line between what's alive and what isn't - we keep finding things that violate the lines we draw. Drawing a line between the foods that get a label and the foods that do not is not as trivial as it sounds. There's plenty of edge cases.

[Major Nikon]

78. It already was long before GMO ever came around

You share 50% of your DNA with a banana.

[TheKentuckian]

102. I'm sure a roach and a banana have common marker too but it doesn't follow that I want

roaches when I ask for a banana.

If you splice roaches into my banana then I don't think it is crazy for me to want to know and further that it is crazy for you to be up in arms upset that I want to know.

You want roachnannas then have at it. Eat them all day and all night for all I care.

I don't eat pork, I have a right to know if pork is cooked with my green beans no matter how much you don't mind or even prefer pork in yours and I sure as hell have the right to know if my green beans ARE pork.

You don't even pay for my food, who are you to tell me what I eat? Who do you think you are, God?

[Major Nikon]

103. Actually given your 'logic' it does follow

Roach DNA is already in bananas regardless of where you get them from. GMO produced fruits and vegetables are chemically the same as non-GMO alternatives. There's no magical hocus pocus that makes one thing suddenly something else because different DNA has been spliced into it. Animal DNA isn't used in commercial GMO products to begin with and even if it were the whole idea of 'frankenfoods' and "playing god" is a childish argument. Where did you come up with this nonsense that I'm telling you what to eat? I could care less if you eat roadapples and bark at the moon.

[DLnyc]

25. How many would support labeling posts by Monsanto shills?

Just curious.

[ret5hd]

36. I think they label themselves.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

101. Speaking of Monsanto shills...

Monsanto now has commercials out talking about how 'we're all talking about the quality of our food' and how Monsanto is 'helping to make sure all Americans can have a balanced diet' and whatnot. Ie, let's not talk about the fact that what Monsanto actually makes is poisons, used to kill off bugs and other plants, and pretend that they're a happy healthy shiny wonderful food making company.

[Thinkingabout]

26. I think it is time to start producing our own produce and farm products

This would be a way to shut down all the "bad" companies who pass along all the bad food. We would be in control and the exercise would be great. I do, it is a labor of love and we would appreciate it more.

[GreatGazoo]

28. they link to the source and the source makes no mention of the DNA question

http://agecon.okstate.edu/faculty/publications/4975.pdf

no mention of any type of control questions there

[ND-Dem]

32. Gee, could it be a lie? Perish the thought.

[jeff47]

35. Try reading page 4. (nt)

[Recursion]

47. Yes, it does

86.5% of respondents support mandatory country of origin labels for meat. A large majority (82%) support
mandatory labels on GMOs, but curiously about the same amount (80%) also support mandatory labels on
foods containing DNA. The least popular policies were bans on transfats, bans on sales of marijuana, and a tax
on sugared sodas. Only about 39% of respondents supported a sugared soda tax.

[Ramses]

43. 30% of the US still supports GWB

[Recursion]

46. Ban hydric acid! (nt)

[Revanchist]

49. Reminds me of the prank that pops up every now and then

getting female college students to sign a petition to end woman's suffrage. There's a whole lot of ignorance out there, no matter where you live.

[DemocraticWing]

52. Can we label the people who supported this?

Some dunce caps might do.

[polynomial]

93. Labels are needed more than ever

It’s the natural order of things, where does the basic growing fertilizer energy come from, how good is the water supply?

Are farms adjacent to oil fracking, or is that corn or soybeans grown with a fertilizer as anhydrous ammonia as a known carcinogen.

What about farm products are grown next to the railroads that have rain runoff that has creosote and anhydrous ammonia, two very cancer causing chemicals.

This needs to be labeled…

[Major Nikon]

104. Good point

I'd kinda like to know if the food I eat has been fertilized by cow shit, because using such fertilizer has been positively linked to hundreds of deaths and thousands of illnesses (unlike GMO which has been positively linked to exactly zero deaths and zero illnesses). However, I'm pretty sure if the synthetic fertilizer industry were to lobby for such labeling, organic producers would say such a tactic is designed to promote irrational fearmongering for an otherwise completely safe product and they would be right. Might be interesting how such a thing would poll.