Comments Anastasia has made

Obviously this isn't going to get anywhere, so I'll just leave a few closing thoughts addressing core problems that seem to be the basis for most people's mistrust of GMOs. If anyone would like to discuss any aspects of biotechnology in greater detail, feel free to visit Genetic Maize or Biofortified, neither of which have any connections with agribusiness (I specify this since it seems to be of such great concern).

Corporations can be really really horrible global citizens, especially when government regulation is lax. There are hundreds if not thousands of examples of problems, from chemicals and medicines claimed to be safe to cigarettes. Maybe capitalism isn't a good system at all. I don't know. I do know that capitalism with all of its baggage has nothing to do with the science behind genetic engineering.

With all of the problems with capitalism, one might say we need far more public agricultural research, but that costs a lot of money. One way to raise money for development is with patents. Of course, the patenting of genes for any purpose is undoubtedly a major ethical and practical problem. If individuals and companies weren't able to protect their work, there would be little impetus to develop anything new - but we know there are a lot of problems with patenting life. One solution is to go totally open source like CAMBIA. Another solution is to have a conditional patent that protects the intellectual property but allows people below a certain financial threshold to use the plants without penalty. I don't think any solution is going to be perfect, but this is all a legal problem, which has nothing to do with the science of genetic engineering.

If you want to consider the science of genetic engineering - there has been a wealth of independent research - but it sounds like most people can't be bothered to read it. Instead, most want to continue claiming that there isn't any independent research and focusing on a few long debunked or misunderstood studies. However, if you decide you have a moment, check out this list of independent safety assessments (and feel free to ask questions at GMO pundit too, since he compiled the list). Of course it isn't an exhaustive list, but you will get the idea.

As for what Bt and RR have done for you - think about what they were designed to do. Bt replaces an insecticide. This has allowed yields to go up (because less of the crop is eaten by insects) while taking toxic insecticides out of the environment (including all the insecticides that we KNOW kill bees). RR allows the farmer to replace toxic herbicides like atrazine with the relatively benign herbicide glyphosate. This isn't perfect! It would certainly be better if farmers used methods that didn't require any herbicides or insecticides, but that's not going to happen. If it did, food prices would skyrocket due to yield loss with weed competition and insect damage.Think about how expensive organic is compared to conventional. The price difference is partially due to marketing, but a good portion is because growing food organically is expensive.

There might be ways to make it less expensive though, by combining sustainable methods with science to develop a new type of farming. I challenge you to read Tomorrow's Table, a book by a genetic engineer and an organic farmer who show ways that organic farming methods might be complemented with crops containing certain genetic improvements. They make a strong argument for organic as well as for genetic engineering, explaining everything in laymans terms while providing peer-reviewed references for anyone who wants to read the research for themselves. There is a Google Book preview here.

It is a shame that Bt and RR are the only GM crops that we've seen, but the blame for that can be placed on activists that prevent research into much else. Luckily some researchers are pushing on and have created some incredibly helpful GM crops. The first that comes to mind is virus resistant papaya, which is discussed in Tomorrow's Table. I won't provide any links because you'd probably think they were tainted just from me providing them. I challenge you to look it up (preferably from a variety of sources) and think about it for yourself.

Finally, I just wanted to reiterate what has been said before. If you have to resort to insults, then you might want to do a bit more research on your own claims. Also, before you make any claims, it helps to be able to back it up with more than gut feelings and rumors. These issues are complicated (ethical, social, environmental, legal, and on and on) and require a lot of untangling even before getting down to the "fucking molecule talk". Agriculture is complex. If we're going to bother talking about it, let's do it justice by doing our homework.

Yardner, you'd better turn off that computer now, because science hasn't shown that computers are 100% safe for human health. Actually, plenty of studies have shown that they cause a variety of problems from eye damage to wrist damage to bad posture...

If you want to be 100% sure about everything you come into contact with, you couldn't do/eat/touch anything. Water, required for life, can kill you if you drink too much. "Naturally bred" plants can accumulate natural toxins that cause anything from skin irritation to death.

Research can tell us only limited things, it's true. Yes, there is a possibility that something was missed. Each individual paper can only tell us about the particular situation that was tested. It is only when many papers on a subject are accumulated that we can see the full picture. Regarding genetic engineering, the weight of all the papers is on the side of safety. No, every study that could potentially be done with genetic engineering or genetically engineered crops has been conducted. That's why science is always changing, always adapting to the new data. At some point, though, we can find some thing to be reasonably safe, and that's what has happened with genetic engineering.

If we waited until we knew 100% we would have nothing.

There have been hundreds of studies done to show the safety of the genetically engineered plants that are on the market, including many that had no connections to any corporation. A list of such papers has been collected here. If you are going to challenge the science, please at least attempt to do so with more than rumors and insults.

Yardener, this language isn't splitting hairs, it's the language of science. We never know anything 100%. Even "facts" that are very well understood and completely researched can be changed with more experiments or observation. There is a reason we still have "germ theory",  "the theory of gravtivity" and "the theory of evolution". We are really really sure that pathogenic bacteria, fungi, and viruses cause disease, but there could be something else that we haven't learned about yet. I will not ever say "x is safe" because we may eventually learn that statement is false in some situations. For example, DDT is a very useful and yes, even safe chemical if used in certain situations, but we know all of the negative effects of overuse as was done in the 1950s.

"Peaceiscomingforyou", please pay attention. I didn't "cite Monsanto", I provided to Tom an example of what testing Monsanto had done in direct response to his comment. 

Tom: as I understand it, Monsanto never tested RR crops on bees and to suggest that a lack of testing proves anything is somewhat disingenuous.

Anastasia: Monsanto has tested glyphosate on bees, as can be found in this extensive report  [followed by reasons why they didn't need to test the RR pollen].

All of the sites you posted are junk. I have watched WAM and FoF, I have read Jeffery Smith's ramblings along with all of the books you've listed, I am familiar with the Vandana Shiva's claims about farmer suicides... and I've found them all to be hollow. They include outright falsehoods that go against all known science and faulty logic connecting unrelated things. Anti-GM spokespersons often resort to lies to get their claims across, and that should set off warning signals for any rational person. There are legitimate concerns about some farming methods, including genetic engineering, which I discuss frequently on my blog, but strangely, they are rarely brought up by people that say they are concerned about GM. I suppose fearmongering is preferred - it certainly seems to have worked on you!

Alida, from your comments, I still don't think you understand the difference between RR and Bt. These two traits are not the same at all. As for the bees, my friend's paper is an up to date review of the literature as of November 2008, which does include work from industry. If you have evidence that disproves anything I've said or that is in his paper, please, let's see it. I fully admit that I have not read everything ever written on the subject and would love to learn about anything I've missed.

The 2007 caddisfly-Bt study by Rosi-Marshall that you mentioned has been debunked by several experts in the field. The researchers unfortunately made inappropriate conclusions from their work, and other scientists have called them on it. I wrote about it in Even scientists make mistakes or you can view the challenges to the paper directly at PNAS: Beachy and Parrott. One paper is never enough to make a definitive statement. It is only with an accumulation of papers that the reality of a situation shows through.

You say "Monsanto only tested the GMO corn seeds on an insect similar to the corn borer, not on bees" (which doesn't really make sense, because the seeds are inert on their own...) but you wouldn't believe any research coming from Monsanto anyway. Many researchers from a variety of institutions across the planet have studied the effects of Bt pollen, Bt crop residues, the crystalline protein itself, etc on a variety of insects and have concluded that the pollen and crop residues are safe for non-target insects. Just one example: a meta-analysis (a study of studies) showed that non-target insects were higher in Bt fields than in non-Bt fields that have been sprayed with insecticide: Bt Crop Effects. The same study and others did find that there are fewer of some types of insects in Bt fields when compared to non-Bt fields that were treated with insecticide. The reasons for this still need to be studied in more depth, but likely have to do with trophic relationships of the insects, such as a reduction in insects that prey on the target insects.

Finally, dear Yardener, Peaceiscomingforyou, and Alida, are you being paid by the organic lobby? You are all shills! See how silly that sounds? Seriously, the last way to have a constructive debate is to make claims about someone you don't even know - especially when the person has clearly listed any potential conflicts of interest very clearly on his/her website. When you start calling people names, you show that your points are so weak that you have to resort to mud slinging. In short, you lose all credibility.

Actually, it's pretty easy to find the location of the gene (I'm guessing you meant where the insertion of the RR gene, not glyphosate, is). With inverse PCR, all you need to know is the sequence of the gene you inserted. Then you sequence the PCR result. This works especially well when the species' genome has been sequenced, but is informative even if the full genome hasn't been done yet. Compare the sequence to known gene sequences using BLAST and then you know what the gene had the new DNA inserted into it. The location of the transgene does matter, so you can be sure that biotech companies as well as academic and government researchers determine the location of many transgenic events before setting on one to proceed with.

Alida, your concern for the bees is laudable, but your connections are faulty.

CCD has been found on organic and Amish farms, which led researchers to rule out genetically engineered crops, pesticides, and cell phones as a cause. Most likely, the cause of CCD is a combination of inbreeding and stress (from a number of sources including pesticides, movement of colonies in trucks, and variable food sources) which both make the bees more susceptible to mites and the diseases the mites carry, including parasites. A friend of mine wrote a paper about it: Honey Bee Colony Collapse Disorder: A Literature Review which sums up the CCD situation. He writes about some potential solutions that have been suggested by bee researchers, such as planting flowers among crops to give bees additional food sources for when the crops aren't flowering.

As for the GMOs, Roundup Ready and Bt are very different traits.

The chemical glyphosate in Roundup blocks an important metabolic pathway in plants by binding to an enzyme. RR crops have a version of the enzyme that is not affected by glyphosate (How Roundup Works and Roundup Ready Transgenic Plants). Animals, including bees, do not have this pathway, so are not affected. RR crops have allowed farmers to replace the highly toxic atrazine with the relatively benign glyphosate, which overall has a positive affect on bees and everything else (unfortunately, Roundup has been overused which has led to the evolution of resistance in some weeds, but that's another subject). The only difference between RR sugar beet and conventional non-RR sugar beet is a little snippet of DNA, this one enzyme, and the fact that non-RR beets get more toxic herbicide sprays. The sugar extracted from them is indistinguishable since sugar does not contain protein or DNA.

Bt crops produce a protein that is toxic to a narrow range of insects, including the larvae of certain moths and beetles. There have been quite a few studies showing that Bt fields have more insect biodiversity than conventional BT fields that have been sprayed with insecticide, such as this study conducted by USDA-ARS and EPA researchers. The researchers say that no treatment is best, but that Bt is significantly less harmful to insect biodiversity than any of the pesticides they tested.When it comes to bees specifically, many studies have shown that Bt has no effect on bees young and old, even in concentrations much higher than they would encounter in the field, as described in this article by a University of Maryland pest management extension agent.

I hope that helps to clear things up :)

Feel free to visit my blog, Genetic Maize, if you have any questions.

Genetic engineering is not Monsanto

Cummings, despite being a lawyer, has inexplicably chosen to bypass intelligent discussion of the legal and economic challenges facing equitable distribution of all forms of technology. She barely touches the ethical and social issues involved when farmers either seek to or are forced to move from traditional farming methods to more complex and possibly inappropriate farming methods. She instead repeats the same sad quasi-science bleated by so many anti-technology sheep, because it is easier to blame genetic engineering for all agricultural and environmental problems than it is to actually learn about any of the thousands of issues involved. This type of writing isn't going to help anyone, least of all the poor farmers in developing countries that she and her elitist ilk only pretends to protect. Yawn.On Author Claire Hope Cummings dishes the dirt on genetically modified food posted 1 year, 3 months ago 12 Responses

Trademark misuse

The "cease-and-desist" letter didn't actually say that you should stop blogging. They just asked you to not use the trademarked name of one of their products as a catchphrase. Call me crazy but I think the company is well within their rights here.

For more scientific discussion on GMOs, visit my blog: GeneticMaize.

Monsanto and farmers

What I want to know is - why Monsanto? There are hundreds of companies out there that do all sorts of questionable things. Monsanto is just another corporation trying to make a profit. Maybe the whole idea of corporations is flawed, but don't blame just one. The way I see it, any person who says Monsanto is evil is a hypocrite unless they boycott the majority of other corporations as well.

I also find it strange that people condemning Monsanto completely eliminate logic from their arguments. Monsanto, just like any other company, goes to great lengths to ensure that they release products that are as safe as possible. If the products were that bad, farmers wouldn't buy them. I doubt that Monsanto, the regulatory agencies, or the farmers are that inept.

The argument that GMOs don't help small poor farmers is tired. Put it to bed already. Bt crops have allowed farmers to spend less on inputs and benefit from increased yields (due to decreased insect damage). Why else would farmers in China be clamoring for them? The situation in India is a little different due to poor government regulation, but we can't blame politics on science.

More recently, despite a lack of funding from NGOs and GOs, there has been a explosion of crops that will undoubtedly directly benefit farmers - virus resistant, submergence resistant, nitrogen use efficient, drought resistant, nutritionally enhanced, and so on. These are (like all GM crops and unlike non-GM crops) tested intensively for safety before they are even presented for release. In cases when the price of seed would be too high for poor farmers due to licensing fees, companies have followed the example of Golden Rice and granted free or low cost seed to those farmers. These things all take time to develop (especially when public pressure has dried up funding), but we can't deny their existence.

The anti-GM activists have done far more than directly destroy research. They have prevented farmers in Africa from even having the choice to use agricultural technology. Genetic engineering is by no means a silver bullet but it can help to solve specific problems faced by these farmers. If the battlefield of activism is the lives of starving people, count me out.

I'm sorry if my manner is rough, normally I am careful to be gentle with my comments, but I'm frustrated with seeing the same lame arguments again and again. Oh, and before you say it - no, I don't work for Monsanto.

For more scientific discussion on GMOs, visit my blog: GeneticMaize.

many options

I have to wonder, though, why did they choose to engineer sterile mosquitoes instead of ones that are incapable of carrying the parasite? I suppose the former is easier, but the latter would have less disruption to food webs. Hm. I'm not saying I disagree with the plan, but there are a lot of possibilities out there - especially with genetic engineering.

For more scientific discussion on GMOs, visit my blog: GeneticMaize.

Starved for science

Ever heard the story "teach a man to fish..."?

Just giving food to impoverished nations is little more than a band aid on a chest wound. Helping those countries to develop agricultural programs that boost productivity is the only way they'll ever climb out of poverty.

Federal aid programs used to spend a lot of money and effort on agricultural science in developing nations. Unfortunately, funding waned as people in wealthy countries decided that they themselves no longer needed ag science. Thankfully, those same programs are again realizing the need to empower farmers in developing countries by helping those countries develop their own ag science. Now, when I say ag science, I am not necessarily referring to artificial input intensive farming. The exact farming methods will obviously vary depending on crop, location, water, etc.

It is true that big seed companies do the majority of research and production of both transgenic and conventional seed. They are the only ones who can afford it! Government funding isn't available, possibly due to negative public opinion for any technology in farming. Happily, the seed companies are recognizing the need to have different licensing for small subsistence farmers and for large money making farms. This will make improved crops available to the people who need it most. This section of the food bill reflects this, and considers the benefits of crops like virus-resistant papya, drought-resistant cassava, and submergence-tolerant rice.

The example you provide from 2002 is a case in point. The Africans were wary of and turning away food aid simply because groups like FOE told them to. The grain wasn't "untested" or "toxic", despite what the anti-science propaganda said, and has been eaten safely by Americans since the 1980s. Fear mongering helps no one, and has caused the deaths of many. Keeping developing countries from investigating ag technologies like genetic engineering for themselves is simply pastoralism. We may idealize the simple life of the farmer, but shouldn't project that on people who deserve choices.

As for the "just ain't the case" link, I say again that you should check your facts. Dr. Barney Gordon himself wrote in Seed Today that his reasearch was misrepresented in the Independent article. I extensively reviewed the article in my blog post, Exposed, Indeed.On Federal food-aid package promotes GMOs posted 1 year, 6 months ago 7 Responses

Reporting the facts might be nice for a change

Instead of depending on journalists to interpret science for you, it would be a good idea to read the studies for yourself. Neither of the studies mentioned in the Independent article "Exposed: The Great GM Crops Myth" are what they are said to be. I've dissected them both in my post "Exposed, indeed." and included plenty of links so you can read for yourself. http://www.geneticmaize.com/2008/04/exposed/

Erik Hoffner, the amount of glyphosate has increased, but it's important to consider what it has replaced. Alternative herbicides, such as atrazine, are far worse. Additionally, the use of glyphosate resistant crops has allowed more farmers to go no-till, preserving topsoil and allowing more carbon retention in the soil. These things aren't black and white.

For more scientific discussion on GMOs, visit my blog: GeneticMaize.

How is this bad, again?

Planting carefully designed genetically modified crops in Mexico will allow for higher yields, decreased destruction of crops due to insects and fungi, decreased use of insecticides... and that's only considering the crops that are on the market. Additional crops are in the works that decrease the necessary amount of nitrogenous fertilizer and that improve nutrition, among many others.

Yes, Mexico has many wild and cultivated varieties of Zea mays. However, there has been a lot of research on exactly how many rows of corn need to surround a field to decrease pollen flow outside the field to less than 0.5%. Farmers can also use strategies such as timing the pollen shed of genetically modified maize to be before or after the receptive period of local varieties.

These techniques can easily be mandated by law, and modified as science develops better methods. If the laws aren't enforced, it isn't the fault of the scientists who developed the crops. For example, the EPA has mandated use of insect refuges for Bt crops. If farmers aren't planting these areas, then there obviously needs to be better enforcement.

Genetic engineering is just another new technology. Regulation of new technology is always difficult as we figure out how the technology impacts the world in unforeseen ways. On Mexico to allow planting of genetically modified crops posted 1 year, 8 months ago 10 Responses

serious fearmongering

I just wanted to point out that the "serious evidence" of health threats at the IRT actually contains no evidence at all - leaning heavily on the word "could". In addition, the founder of IRT stands to gain money from book sales and such, so isn't exactly an unbiased source.

Also, if you actually read ISAAA's report, which was funded by the respected Rockefeller Foundation, 11 of the 12 million farmers using biotech crops in 2007 were small and resource poor farmers from developing countries. More acerage is planted in developed countries, but that doesn't detract from the benefits that biotech has brought to developing countries.

For more scientific discussion on GMOs, visit my blog: GeneticMaize.

And this is news?

This study shows that children who eat produce that wasn't sprayed with organophosphates don't have these chemicals in their bodies. Surprise! Eliminating organophosphate pesticides from so-called conventional farming would have the same effect. No offense to the people who conducted the study, but I don't know how these "Capitan Obvious" studies get funded.On Organic produce reduces kids' exposure to pesticides, says study posted 1 year, 10 months ago 10 Responses

More than meets the eye...

So carrots with slightly higher calcium aren't going to change anything - the researchers themselves were the first to say so.

Think of the carrots instead as a proof of concept. Carrots with higher calcium make us one step closer to maize with higher iron, wheat with higher folate, or a number of other changes that could help prevent vitamin deficiencies (and, consequently, prevent much disease and death). Sure, people like you and me who can afford a computer can also afford a balanced diet or fancy vitamins, but many people can not.

This is the beneficial sort of genetic engineering that was discussed back before biotech companies focused only on crop improvements that would bring in the most profit, like herbicide resistance. The corporations have no impetus to develop for qualities that will benefit consumers - the possibility of profit does not warrant the R&D expense. That's why it's necessary for university scientists to research such things, often with funding from sources such as the USDA, or non-profits such as HarvestPlus. I, for one, am excited that a genetically engineered food designed to improve human nutrition is being publicized. I imagine that Mr. Madrigal feels similarly.

The fact that they chose an Arabidopsis gene is irrelevant here. Its genome is sequenced, and  most of the genes have been categorized though projects like Arabidopsis 2010. Carrots have a similar gene themselves, but it likely isn't as well characterized as the one from Arabidopsis. It works as well as a native gene, and the carrots are still carrots.

For more scientific discussion on GMOs, visit my blog: GeneticMaize.

RoundUp Ready isn't the only one

It's really too bad that the big ag companies are sticking to pesticide resistance only. There are so many possibilities out there - disease resistance, improved nutrition, and better use of water and fertilizer to name a few. I can't help but wonder if the focus would change if customer perception changed first.

For more scientific discussion on GMOs, visit my blog: GeneticMaize.