Genetically Modified Maize Is Toxic

[IcarusAngel]

"It appears that a variety of genetically modified maize produced by Monsanto is toxic for the liver and kidneys. What's worse, Monsanto knew about it and tried to conceal the facts in its own publications. Greenpeace fought in court to obtain the data and had it analyzed by a team of experts. MON863, the variety of GM maze in question, has been authorized for markets in the US, EU, Australia, Canada, China, Japan, Mexico, and the Philippines. Here are Greenpeace's brief on the study and their account of how the story was unearthed (both PDFs)."

from /. (http://science.slashdot.org/science/07/03/15/1426236.shtml)

[Vargha Poralli]

Not surprising when anyone knows the profile of Monsanto.In India some 3-4 years back they marketed a variety of cotton when is very much of a poor quality and because of the loss it brought to them some 60-70 farmers and their whole families committed suicide.And now they are marketing some genetically modified rice with full co-operation of agricultural reserach institutions and central government which has facedd a stiff resistance from the farmers.They have retreated for now since some state elections came up and the ruling party didn't want to lose those preciuos farmer's votes.

[ichneumon]

i read over this, and there's a lot of handwaving going on. "slight disturbances in function" etc. not that it's not an issue, but that it should be looked at more closely

[Janus]

First of all, this only pertains to a certain brand of GMO foods rather than the entire food type itself. As for the test itself, it requires more analysis and data to substantiate these claims and discover whether or not this maize is harmful to humans as well.

[Severian]

Wow! Greenpeace says it's toxic! What a shocker!

Write when somebody else says it....

[IcarusAngel]

Originally posted by [email protected] 17, 2007 11:27 pm
Wow! Greenpeace says it's toxic! What a shocker!

Write when somebody else says it....
It was published by the "Archives of Environmental Contamination and Technology," which is an independent, peer reviewed journal, not by "Greenpeace." Greenpeace reported it. Please read the article (taking extra time, if needed) before you comment. This is true in most cases as well -- environmentalists aren't "distorting" science or having scientists distort it for them, rather, scientists conduct studies, and then environmentalists report what they've said.

For example, in one of the PDFs the article links to:

"April 8, 2003: The German competent authorities publish their assessment of the MON863 application. In their report they state that the amino acid sequence of the Cry3B1 toxin produced by the MON863 maize has similarities to some other toxins. Most notably, the German authority found some "homologies to sequences from Clostridium bifermentans, Caenorhabditis elegans, Vibrio cholerae and Bacillus popilliae." These homologies are of high relevance in respect to human and animal health."

These changes in the proteins, which has ever been done before naturally, has the potential of being harmful to humans.

I don't see why we need GMOs to begin with. I do not think GMOs would actually make a significant dent in the food supply issues. The increases in productivity are not that significant, and neither does a GMO plant grow in a desert either, which is the situation in many third world countries, there simply is not any water, and a GMO plant or a regular plant is not going to grow without water. Evidence shows that GMOs may actually decreased productivity.

[Severian]

Originally posted by IcarusAngel+March 18, 2007 08:42 am--> (IcarusAngel @ March 18, 2007 08:42 am)
[email protected] 17, 2007 11:27 pm
Wow! Greenpeace says it's toxic! What a shocker!

Write when somebody else says it....
It was published by the "Archives of Environmental Contamination and Technology," which is an independent, peer reviewed journal, not by "Greenpeace." [/b]
Then why are you linking Greenpeace's version of it, rather than the study itself? Or a more objective summary of that study? Might be that looking at the study itself - might not support Greenpeace's description of it. Even the news articles involved all start "Greenpeace said that.", they're all based on Greenpeace press releases.

Reporters often don't take (aren't given the time to) wade through scientific studies, so most reporting about scientific issues is pretty crappy. Celebrity reporting pays the bills better for most media outlets.

And the PDF quote says "German competent authorities conclude" - again, not from those "competent authorities" (which ones?) themselves....BTW, the European ruling classes do have a protectionist interest in keeping out U.S.-made biotech.


I don't see why we need GMOs to begin with. I do not think GMOs would actually make a significant dent in the food supply issues.

What? Well, there's what you think, and then there's reality.


The increases in productivity are not that significant,

If that was true, the market would take care of the GMO alleged problem for you. New production processes spread under capitalism only when they increase productivity.

[chimx]

GMO corn has increased the amount of corn being grown 10 fold. Thanks to ammonium nitrate fertilizer, we are able to grow corn significantly better. Roughly 2/5s of the earths population would not be alive today without this kind of technological developments in fertilizer and GMOs.

Of course, this is looking at life quantitatively instead of qualitatively. Due to the massive increase in fertilizer usage for GMO corn and other crops, we have become reliant on non-renewable fossil fuel sources.

Its certainly a conundrum. Yes we are allowing more people to live right here and right now. But unless we address long-term environmental issues, shit will someday hit the fan.

[IcarusAngel]

Originally posted by Severian+March 18, 2007 10:08 pm--> (Severian @ March 18, 2007 10:08 pm)
Originally posted by [email protected] 18, 2007 08:42 am

Originally posted by [email protected] 17, 2007 11:27 pm
Wow! Greenpeace says it's toxic! What a shocker!

Write when somebody else says it....
It was published by the "Archives of Environmental Contamination and Technology," which is an independent, peer reviewed journal, not by "Greenpeace."
Then why are you linking Greenpeace's version of it, rather than the study itself? Or a more objective summary of that study? Might be that looking at the study itself - might not support Greenpeace's description of it. Even the news articles involved all start "Greenpeace said that.", they're all based on Greenpeace press releases. [/b]

I'm not sure exactly what your point is here (half of this isn't even English), but from what I could make of it:

1. I didn't link to Greenpeace's version of it, I linked to /.'s [Slashdot's] coverage of the issue -- a website I also like to post at. The people at /. are programmers, chemists, engineers, science majors, etc., and certainly have more knowledge of "science" than this forum. If it's worthwhile for them, it's worthwhile for this forum.

2. I'm not such a simpleton to follow the fallacious argument that this isn't "newsworthy" just because Greenpeace is the propagator of the story. The reason Geenpeace exists is because they actually investigate and report these kinds of misuses. Furthermore, objectivity is in the eyes of the contemplator, but you can never say "this is wrong" just because you don't like a group.

For example, I often read articles at the Christian Science Monitor, even though I'm not a christian and I can see they slant some stories. But I won't say a story actually is slanted until I have evidence for it.

3. If you had bothered to go back and read the article, like I'd originally asked, you'd see that the German authorities, the French CGB and Ministry of Agriculture, the EFSA, the Council of EU Environment Ministers, and the European Commission, among others, all had their chance to examine and subsume the results of the rat toxicity studies. Greenpeace merely relayed the findings.

If you have evidence that they're all wrong, present it to the forum.

4. I didn't link to the "study itself" because usually a summary of such findings are relevant enough for discussion. Most of the threads on this very forum aren't of "scientific journals" but news links and stuff from places such as "open democracy." However, those interested in finding the study can surely do so if they wish, and as somebody at /. noted, there is going to be another studying on this issue soon.


[email protected] 18, 2007 10:08 pm
Reporters often don't take (aren't given the time to) wade through scientific studies, so most reporting about scientific issues is pretty crappy. Celebrity reporting pays the bills better for most media outlets.

Scientific American covered it, whose "reporters" often have degrees in the sciences. I tend to find SA more objective than Fox News or CNN. Oh right, I forgot you know more than SA, just like MattyUK knows more about Marxism than Karl Marx -- my bad.


And the PDF quote says "German competent authorities conclude" - again, not from those "competent authorities" (which ones?) themselves....BTW, the European ruling classes do have a protectionist interest in keeping out U.S.-made biotech.

Again, it's a peer reviewed study. I'm not sure why exactly you're having such a hard time grasping that, and keeping looking for supposed "biases" of organizations that don't prove anything.


What? Well, there's what you think, and then there's reality.

That is my opinion of GMO's, based off of the scientists I've read who have commented on it. Furthermore, it's obvious that there hasn't been a significant gain as there is more people dying of hunger now than when GMOs originally came out.


If that was true, the market would take care of the GMO alleged problem for you. New production processes spread under capitalism only when they increase productivity.

The "market" yields always in favor of profits, not the "best productivity." This is true in any industry, from electronics, to computer programming (java) to agribusiness. There is enough food to feed the world three times over, but we don't utilize the land in that way because corporations can get far richer off meat production etc. than they can utilizing the land to produce food for everyone.

Furthermore, it's disingenuous to call this agribusiness a "market" when it's one of the most heavily subsidized, heavily protected industries in the US (and around the world) today. Hopefully, your knowledge of science isn't as poor as your knowledge of modern corporate capitalism.

[IcarusAngel]

Originally posted by [email protected] 19, 2007 07:03 am
GMO corn has increased the amount of corn being grown 10 fold. Thanks to ammonium nitrate fertilizer, we are able to grow corn significantly better. Roughly 2/5s of the earths population would not be alive today without this kind of technological developments in fertilizer and GMOs.

Of course, this is looking at life quantitatively instead of qualitatively. Due to the massive increase in fertilizer usage for GMO corn and other crops, we have become reliant on non-renewable fossil fuel sources.

Its certainly a conundrum. Yes we are allowing more people to live right here and right now. But unless we address long-term environmental issues, shit will someday hit the fan.
The reason why there are so many starving people in the world is a complicated matter regarding agribusiness, geography, geopolitics, trade, and so on. It isn't a matter of GMO versus non-GMO, although Monsanto would certainly like to claim that Genetically Modified food will save the earth, even though it (factually speaking) hasn't had any significant impact (I'd like to see some evidence to verify your claims in other words).

GMO is all about the patents and owning seeds. If those patented plants happen to naturally cross breed with your non-gmo plant, you're stealing patented seeds. This actually happened in Canada where a guy successfully sued a farmer after his field has contaminated the farmer's. That's the primary motivator for Monsanto, et al to develop GMO food. So that they can OWN it.

It _may_ have some short term benefits, but there already is enough resources on earth right now to feed everybody without more environmental degradation. In fact, if we changed agricultural production in favor of such a measure, there'd probably be less pollution, but that's not "realistic." However, we might start wanting to look at trying to implement such "unrealistic" measures because the short term benefits from GMO foods are not going to solve the hunger problem, and "agribusiness" is one of the largest polluters that there is already. Who knows what kind of long term effects GMOs will have on our food -- but some people are trying to find out.

[chimx]

The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals (http://www.amazon.com/Omnivores-Dilemma-Natural-History-Meals/dp/1594200823/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/002-7444545-8922405?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1173696385&sr=1-1)

I hope you didn't take what I am saying to imply that it is just Monsanto that is saving all those lives, but rather the advances in agro-technology, which is extremely dependent on oil.

[colorlessman]

Originally posted by [email protected] 19, 2007 06:18 pm
GMO is all about the patents and owning seeds. If those patented plants happen to naturally cross breed with your non-gmo plant, you're stealing patented seeds. This actually happened in Canada where a guy successfully sued a farmer after his field has contaminated the farmer's. That's the primary motivator for Monsanto, et al to develop GMO food. So that they can OWN it.


Someone knows the truth. We don't need GMO seeds. GMO seeds are all about power, money, ownership and monopoly.

[Severian]

Originally posted by [email protected] 19, 2007 12:11 pm
Scientific American covered it, whose "reporters" often have degrees in the sciences.
No, the Scientific American webpage ran a Reuters article - read your own link! And that Reuters article said: Greenpeace claimed that.....

No, I'm sorry, everything you've posted goes back to: Greenpeace says.


The "market" yields always in favor of profits, not the "best productivity."

Productivity is profitable. That's how one business outcompetes another, by producing more at a lower cost.


Due to the massive increase in fertilizer usage for GMO corn and other crops, we have become reliant on non-renewable fossil fuel sources.

So that has nothing to do with genetic engineering, does it? In fact, use of chemical fertilizers is a lot older. Potentially, genetic modification can replace some agricultural chemicals: e.g. Bt corn which produces its own natural pesticide.


GMO is all about the patents and owning seeds. If those patented plants happen to naturally cross breed with your non-gmo plant, you're stealing patented seeds.

Other seeds must be bought from the supplying company every year as well. This is not an argument against genetic modification, it is an argument against capitalist ownership of technology and the means of production.

[chimx]

So that has nothing to do with genetic engineering, does it? In fact, use of chemical fertilizers is a lot older. Potentially, genetic modification can replace some agricultural chemicals: e.g. Bt corn which produces its own natural pesticide.

Current GMO crops, especially corn, tend to require greater fertilization needs. This is because of how heavily corn robs the soil of nitrogen. GMO crops, as I understand it, tend to do this worse. The pre-WWii solution was to rotate crops, putting soybeans/peas/other lugumes in the place where corn had grown to increase the nitrogen levels. After the discovery of ammonium nitrate, this stopped being the case, and capitalist agro-business became more dependent on oil to stay in business.

As far as pesticide stuff goes, I'm neither an evolutionary biologist or a botanist, but I would be interested in hearing about any potential ecological problems that result in the creation of bug resistant plants. Evolution is defined along the terms of the potentiality of an organism to reproduce. This process is generally extremely slow and effects other organisms linked to the evolving species. When we tamper with this evolutionary process, I could at least potentially invision problems with other species that are reliant on the GMOed plant. Granted, I doubt that a single GMOed plant would have that significant of an effect on any bioregion, but I would be more interested in potential long term trends that could be harmful. Any areas ecology is an extremely intricate network of inter-species' relationships. It is best, at the very least, to use caution when suggesting a sudden change in that relationship, lest we feel the burden of ecological harm.

At least that's what I think.

[Severian]

Originally posted by [email protected] 19, 2007 09:21 pm

So that has nothing to do with genetic engineering, does it? In fact, use of chemical fertilizers is a lot older. Potentially, genetic modification can replace some agricultural chemicals: e.g. Bt corn which produces its own natural pesticide.

Current GMO crops, especially corn, tend to require greater fertilization needs. This is because of how heavily corn robs the soil of nitrogen. GMO crops, as I understand it, tend to do this worse.
I don't know where you got this idea. It would depend on the gene that was spliced in.

Unless it's just that a higher-yield crop will take more from the soil...in which case this amounts to complaining the yield is too high.


The pre-WWii solution was to rotate crops, putting soybeans/peas/other lugumes in the place where corn had grown to increase the nitrogen levels. After the discovery of ammonium nitrate, this stopped being the case, and capitalist agro-business became more dependent on oil to stay in business.

Actually other chemical fertilizers were used well before WWII. Marx even writes about 'em, and about the problematic long-term effects on the soil. Guano mining was a big thing, for example.


When we tamper with this evolutionary process, I could at least potentially invision problems with other species that are reliant on the GMOed plant.

More so than spraying pesticides? I doubt it. If a plant produces its own biological pesticide that's the most targeted and biodegradable possible form of pest control.

Ordinarily green types are all for natural pest control. And people have been selectively breeding crops for pest resistance for a long time; it's just that genetic modificiation makes it possible to do this more quickly and effectively.


It is best, at the very least, to use caution when suggesting a sudden change in that relationship, lest we feel the burden of ecological harm.

To call for testing and environmental impact studies for each new product is one thing. To oppose genetic modification itself, as if there's something evil and unclean about the method of changing a living thing - is just fearmongering.

[Vanguard1917]

Greenpeace (which is funded by around 3 million individual financial supporters and various charitable foundations) paid a group of researchers to evaluate the European data which approved MON863 as safe. (MON863 is the name of the corn which has been safely grown in the US and Canada since 2003, and safely consumed for three years there, and Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Russia, the Philippines, and Mexico.) According to the group paid by Greenpeace, the data shows that there are 'signs of toxicity'.

In reality, though, as this article from today (http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/article/3018/) points out, all that the research shows 'is that there is variation among rats - normal variation like you would find in any group of people. None of the findings are in any way alarming or out of the range of normal variability.'

Greenpeace are doing their best to pursue their political campaign against agricultural biotechnology by any means necessary, which involves paying scientists to manipulate data.

Greenpeace have also chosen not to pay the journal in which the study was published so that it can be freely available to the public, presumably to avoid free public scrutiny of their research.


It is unfortunate that the Archives of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology charge non-subscribers US$32 to read this seven-page paper, since Greenpeace is and others are guiding media perceptions of a paper few have apparently read.

Greenpeace has the option, via the publisher of the paper, to pay a fee to make the paper available free of charge to the public. However, such a move is unlikely. Its conclusion is, essentially, a complaint that "the statistical methods used by Monsanto were not detailed enough to see disruptions in biological parameters." What is obviously an argument among statisticians would not justify the alarming headlines which this activist group has thus far succeeded in generating.
link (http://www.agbios.com/main.php?action=ShowNewsItem&id=8323)

[chimx]

To call for testing and environmental impact studies for each new product is one thing. To oppose genetic modification itself, as if there's something evil and unclean about the method of changing a living thing - is just fearmongering.

I am not opposed to the idea of genetic modification. I just want to see people acknowledge potential risks, and work cautiously. I want to end world hunger as much as the next guy, but one shouldn't ignore the long term consequences for short term goals. jah know?

As far as crop rotation, obviously fertilizer has been used for centuries. Corn takes more nitrogen out of the soil than most crops, and is extremely hard on the soil. It was my understanding that even with older fertilizer, some amount of crop rotation was still necessary. I could be wrong, cause I ain't no farmer, but this is what a few folk have told me.