I am EXTREMELY curious to hear about anti-gmo debates! In this thread post any criticisms you have towards GMO, whether they are your own beliefs, or the published beliefs of someone else. I'll get the ball rolling with: http://www.collective-evolution.com...-proving-gmos-can-be-harmful-to-human-health/
The anti-GMO folks are not quite as anti-science as the ludites.Perhaps they are infuenced by some SciFi stories about ET DNA being used to create a dangerous creature. Example: Species.
I think many of my posts on this forum have demonstrated that I am pro-science. I mention this because I have serious concerns about the cavalier manner in which questions concerning GM are raised. (I'm also concerned as to why the OP wants to cherry pick anti-GM views and apparently ignore the voices for.)
Nonsense. I prefer non GMO food. And I am not anti-science. I understand the reasons behind GMO foods, such as drought and disease resistant crops which could help in countries and areas where it is nearly impossible to grow crops due to lack of water and because of arid soil, for example. I understand and recognise the need for it. That said, I disagree with the risk it poses to the wild or more conventional stocks, with the risk of cross contamination and cross breeding. And personally speaking, I have a reason for preferring organic food or non-genetically modified foods and while it is not something that I really wish to discuss, it comes down to a need to eating products that are as natural as possible because I want to know that what I eat, is grown as nature intended, I guess. We put so much crap into our bodies by way of drugs, medication to survive, we contend with pollution. For me it is a matter of trying to keep the food I eat as natural as I can get it. Certainly, some foods we can't escape from being GMO. But where I can use organic products, even if I have to pay more for it, then I will buy the organic product. Or I grow it. I grow a lot of the vegetables that I eat. It doesn't always look pretty, but it tastes great and I know where it came from. I reuse seeds, I don't use pesticides and my seeds are not GMO seeds. And as I said, I cannot escape GMO food. A lot of the things in my cupboard do contain GMO products. I try to keep it to a minimum. We are just going too far away from the basics of what we consume for my liking. And that's just me, I don't expect others to agree with me. Personally, I apply caution for myself and my children. Then of course we have insanity: Monsanto is currently working on a genetically modified soybean that would contain high levels of omega-3 fatty acids; these fish-based fatty acids have been shown to promote a healthy heart.74 Additionally, on a more aesthetic note, in Israel, gene technology is being used to create exotic "designer" fruits and vegetables to entice consumers: tomatoes that smell like lemons, carrots shaped like potatoes, strawberries shaped like carrots, and blue bananas. 75 It probably will not be long before these products land in United States supermarkets. Call me strange, but I have a problem with this. What's wrong with eating fish? As for the rest, I do not find tomatoes smelling like lemons to be enticing, nor would I find blue bananas appealing. I also find the practice to be unscrupulous. The patent laws are absolutely obscene. One of the staples of farming is reusing seed stocks from previous crops. We do it in our vegetable gardens. You grow your food, you let a portion go to seed or ripen to gather the seed for the next crop. Especially for certain plants that grew so well. This is what it used to be about. And this is where it becomes unscrupulous: To use the seed containing the Monsanto gene technologies for planting a commercial crop only in a single season. To not supply any of this seed to any other person or entity for planting, and to not save any crop produced from this seed for replanting, or supply saved seed to anyone for replanting. To not use [the] seed or provide it to anyone for crop breeding, research, generation of herbicide registration data or seed production. That is the seed agreement that farmers enter into with Monsanto. To put it into some perspective: A key issue was how Monsanto licenses its patented glyphosate-tolerance trait that was in 93 percent of US soybeans grown in 2009.[383] About 250 family farmers, consumers and other critics of corporate agriculture held a town meeting prior to the government meeting to protest Monsanto's purchase of independent seed companies, patenting seeds and then raising seed prices. Monsanto sue farmers every year. Even farmers who end up finding GMO seeds in their organic fields... If you look at countries like India, they are literally killing many in the farming industry.. Ugh.. I rather not get started on Monsanto and their practices. I would be here all night if I did. Suffice to say, I am not a fan. So I think labeling people who are "anti-GMO" as being anti-science is dishonest. It isn't because I think eating genetically modified soy products is going to result in my turning into some kind of monster. It is simply because I prefer non-genetically modified foods and prefer to support local farmers and farming practices for the long term. I fully recognise the benefits GMO foods can provide, but I also recognise the risk they can create and I support avid testing to ensure those risks remain at a minimum and if and when issues arise, those crops are immediately destroyed. And at present, they are. I am against the business that seed patents has become, where even simple farming practices of collecting seeds will result in lawsuits and when farmers find 'big business' seed products on their farms due to natural seed transfer, they are being sued up the whazoo. These issues don't make me anti-science because I do not support the current practices.
I mostly agree. The only reason that I am not in favor of the creation of GMO as currently practiced is the patent law associated.
I agree. Was especially annoyed by the misrepresentation in the OP's link's Ref 2 data. It seemed false to me so I opened Ref 2. Here are some quotes from it, with my bold added: "Animal feeding studies have demonstrated that a minor amount of fragmented dietary DNA may resist the digestive process (for a recent review see [4]) and there are sporadic reports in the literature claiming that orally administered small fragments of bacterial DNA [5] or plant RNA [6] can transgress the intestinal barrier," I.e. get into the blood as circulating fragments of DNA, cfDNA; however, almost all, very high percentage like 99.99% come from the cells of the individual that have die or been destroyed by some pathogen or the body's own necrotic mechanisms / apoptotic cells that help kill cancer cell, (or mal-function cells of the individual): "we are only at the first steps to uncover the cellular and molecular mechanisms that transfers cfDNA from cells to blood. Initially pathogen origin has been attributed to cfDNA, later different pathological conditions like cancer, inflammation and autoimmune disease, while finally it has been shown to be present in the plasma of subjects with normal physiological conditions [19], [20], too. Our current understanding is that apoptotic cells – which are present in healthy individuals, too – are the primary source. Additionally, in different diseases (inflammation, autoimmune, trauma and cancer) necrotic cells may increase the cfDNA level " "There is evidence that beyond the human cells of the subject other organisms can contribute to the cfDNA budget. Other humans: Predominant donor origin was proved in patients receiving sex-mismatched bone marrow transplants using quantization of Y-chromosome sequences of plasma and serum cfDNA [28]. Cell free DNA of the fetus can be detected in maternal plasma promising non-invasive prenatal testing of fetal genetic conditions ... Viruses: Virus DNA has been identified using plasma samples from different virus related (lung, gastric, head and neck cancer) tumor patients ... Bacteria: Bacterial DNA level in the human plasma correlates with immune activation and the magnitude of immune restoration in antiretroviral-treated HIV infected persons. ... Billy T notes: It is the job of the immune system to rip apart harmful foreign cells, so of course their DNA fragments will be part of the cfDNA. Finally a they speak of food, first noting it is unlikely to be even tiny part of cfDNA*: DNA from consumed food is usually not considered as a possible source of cfDNA since during food digestion all macromolecules are thought to be degraded to elementary constituents such as amino acids and nucleotides, which are then transferred to the circulatory system through several complex active processes [3]. Though, there are animal studies, mainly focusing on the GMO issue [4], supporting the idea that small fragments of nucleic acids may pass to the bloodstream and even get into various tissues. For example foreign DNA fragments were detected by PCR based techniques in the digestive tract and leukocytes of rainbow trout fed by genetically modified soybean... Billy T asks: And just how impartial do you think the researchers were who "focused on GMO foods"? Would they not keep searching until they found some at least detectable amount to support a hostile to GMO food bias, would they? For example were the trout deprived of all their normal food and force feed only soy beans? I would expect to find them well above detection levels in the gut, and if some tiny fragments of DNA were absorbed it is the job of the white blood cells to go and "eat" foreign intruders; so yes, they could be found there, even if concentration too low to separately identify any foreign fragments in the blood - with its relatively huge cfDNA from the individual's own cells. * Normally, and especially if sick or with tumor/ cancer there is a lot of cfDNA in the blood, the body very quickly (>50% in 30 minutes!) eliminates it: "The cfDNA concentration in healthy people is between 0 and 100 ng/ml with a mean of 133 ng/ml. This level is increased by an order of magnitude in various types of cancer up to a mean of 18038 ng/ml [12]. How the circulating cfDNA is then eliminated from the blood remains unknown in general but altered nucleotide metabolism was observed in tumorous patients. ... Studying the clearance of fetal DNA from maternal blood after birth by Lo et al. [16] a relatively quick mean half-life time (16.3 min, range 4–30 min) of the cfDNA was observed... SUMMARY: The ONLY harm done by GMO foods that has been demonstrated is done by the herbicides that have been used in excess, not the food. This all reminds me of a few decades ago, when microwave ovens were introduced: Many KNEW microwaved food was a great risk to human health. - They just knew that must be true as it was not naturally cooked food.
<-------- is anti N-(phosphonomethyl)glycine that being said: The simplistic term GMO is too broad a subject to elicit specific debate. Transgenic goats anyone?
I'm curious as to what evidence can be presented. I'm not ignoring the voices for GMO, I've already done more than enough 'pro-gmo' research.
If you've already done thorough pro-GMO research on your own, why haven't you done that anti-GMO research on your own? I agree this is a very odd sounding request.
This is a key observation. It applies not only to "specific debate", but to all discussion of the technological field at issue. \ "Avid testing" is not being done. Not even basic epidemiological and ecological monitoring is being done. Most obviously, at the current state of development it is not even known what exactly should be tested, or monitored for, in the case of many GMOs and entire kinds of GMs. This is inevitable in a fundamentally new field of such complexity and significance, and simply recommends caution rather than blame. But in the small number of cases where we have some approximate handle on what the issues might be, the current lack of testing - or even monitoring - indicates problems beyond the merely technical. And in these cases, the political and economic factors involved in the specific deployments of specific GMOs loom - not even in the background any more, but front and center.
Whatever consent "we" gave was not informed, but actively and deliberately misled, even at times coerced. Hence the Luddite backlash, which the technocrats can only pray doesn't find itself suddenly in possession of massively corroborating evidence emerging from some Fukushima of a blind spot they never checked out. There are penalties for deception and manipulation in ignorance, the least of them being a lack of credibility when one legitimately needs and deserves it - the bite in the ass can be a lot worse than that.
i just wish to comment on a small part of this discussion. i can see several potential problems. wild fish stocks are in decline and by-catch waste is a problem. fish farming also poses some environmental concerns...mangrove depletion, and thus affecting fish nurseries, pollution due to waste and excess food. not all people live in locations where access to fish is available.
