Topic: Anti-GMO Study by Earthopensource

[Daws]

Ugh, an overwhelming one at that. I know a lil bit about GMOs to know most of the usual objections about them are bs and based on bad studies and naturalism fallacies. But this just gives sooooo damn much. I don't even know if you can call it a study as it just seems to be a compilation of other studies on various topics about GMOs.

Anyone akin to an expert in the field that can help go through this?

http://earthopensource.org/files/pdfs/GMO_Myths_and_Truths/GMO_Myths_and_Truths_1.1.pdf

I know it's already likely to have a slant given one is an editor at an anti-GM site, and the group itself has a mission statement opposing GMOs right off the bat.

Anyway let me know if anything stands out to you guys on this?

[David "Stubb" Oswald]

Its very easy to spot bullshit when there is bullshit. The biggest clue is this article pretends to be an informative unbiased scientific article, but is full of wiggle words and obvious bias. There are also too many half truths and outright lies for me to start debunking this. But almost every statement was a little off. Saying Bt crops doesn't reduce insecticide use (it does), because it turns plants into insecticides is just a weird statement. What it does is express a protein that under basic environments can erode chitin. Whether that is an insecticide doesn't matter, but describing it in the scariest possible terms is dishonest. Just one example.

Anyways I have to talk to over a hundred farmers tomorrow and I won't be able to contribute much.

[SkepticalVegan]

The comments section here has some good info on that
http://www.foodpolitics.com/2012/06/gm-myths-and-truths-a-critical-review-of-the-science/#comments

    Karl Haro von Mogel
    June 18, 2012
    1:35 pm

“Can the pro-GM advocates produce something equally well researched, comprehensive, and compelling? I doubt it but I’d like to see them try.”
Is there a need for this? We have very detailed reviews of evidence known as the NAS NRC reports, one from 2004 and one from 2010:
http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?isbn=0309092094
http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=12804

Unfortunately, it would take a more voluminous report to detail the errors made in this one. For instance, they uncritically accept the conclusions of papers that favor their position that have been widely debunked, such as, the detection of Bt in the blood of humans. The test used in the Aris and Leblanc paper was not capable of detecting levels as low as they reported, as in, the data was indistinguishable from zero.
They also ignore the large body of research that has been conducted on GE crops, to cherry-pick a few examples. Take your pick of studies, most are not referenced in this report:
http://www.biofortified.org/genera/studies-for/genera/

Unfortunately, also, it takes a lot of time, and for that matter, money to write big (non-peer-reviewed) reports such as these. I’d love to do it, but I would need a large amount of time – time I don’t have. Earth Open Source does not disclose any financial information. I seem to recall Marion Nestle saying that she always looks to see who is funding the research she reads – but so far I have never heard her ask this question about anti-GE claims. Why is that?

    Ellen
    June 18, 2012
    2:18 pm

Karl Haro von Mogel, I was curious about the funding for earth open source, too– it seems impossible to find on their website. Googling around, though, I found this section on the “Recent Projects” of a UK corporation called Blue Marble Consulting, founded by one of the people on the earth open source team:

“Blue Marble assumed the responsibilities of VP of Marketing and Business Development for the Global ID Group, working closely with the company CEO and Chairman to

•Raise several million dollars in venture funding.
•Develop an innovation strategy for the company’s key sustainability programmes, including one of the largest ethical certification programmes in the world.
•Pull together an innovation team of some of the lead practitioners in food sustainability worldwide, including David Gould (who wrote the environmental component of the Fairtrade standard), John Grant (award winning author and leading practitioner of green marketing), Sophie Thomas (Founder of award winning design agency Thomas Matthews) and Ayca Apak Tonge (reputed events, marketing and PR expert).
•Develop a 5 year plan for a not-for-profit sustainability think and do tank 2.0 to pioneer sustainability programmes (earth open source).
The over-riding theme among projects Blue Marble tackles is how the major cultural influences of the ‘information age’, regeneration and sustainability, networked collaboration, and lifelong learning, collectively drive a need not just for a new approach to the communications aspect of marketing, but actually to find new up to date models of innovation so that the fundamental products and services offered fit with the aspirations of the people they serve.”

So, it looks like earth open source is a project backed by Global ID Group, and from their website they seem to be a company that sells third party certification of non-GM food. So, they’d have a pretty huge profit motive to convince consumers that, despite overwhelming scientific evidence to the contrary, genetically modified food is dangerous and needs to have a label on it.

    Dario Bressanini
    June 18, 2012
    2:49 pm

It is not a “report” to be taken seriously. It is just full of cherry picking, asks the wrong questions as a straw man, cites discredited papers (e.g. those of Seralini), out of contest citations and so on.
But I am sure people that do not follow the literature in the field would look at the number of references and think it is a nicely researched “report”. It is not, but it would take hundreds of pages and too much wasted time to debunk it.
You can find some rebuttal here http://academicsreview.org/reviewed-content/genetic-roulette/
It was a rebuttal of Jeffrey Smith”s Book but many arguments are repeated over and over even here

    Dario Bressanini
    June 18, 2012
    3:08 pm

Take for example the sentence “Do not reduce pesticide use but increase it”

There are two rhetoric tricks here:
1) they talk about TOTAL pesticides, and not pesticide per acre
The TOTAL amount of glifosate increased since there was an increase of RR soy in Argentina, in land that was not cultivated before
However the amount of pesticide/ha has decreased, And furthermore, it is stupid to compare pesticides by the amount not taking into account the toxicity

2) the second trick is to pool together the insecticide (whose use globally was REDUCED thanks to the Bt crops) with the increase in use of herbicide. In this way they avoid talking about the huge reduction in insecticide uses, with a reduction of health problems for workers in the fiels. This is a trick that was first used by Friends of the Earth: since they cannot deny the reduction in insecticide in Bt cotton and Bt corn, they sum everything together in their “report”

I wrote many articles (and even a book) debunking this stuff with the correct peer reviewed in contest citations . However they are all in italian

    Dario Bressanini
    June 18, 2012
    3:18 pm

If you want to read a real scientific report, not this kind of trash you can take a look at the National Academies report http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=12804

Or EU research center report on the economic impact of GM crops worldwide (it is a review) http://ipts.jrc.ec.europa.eu/publications/pub.cfm?id=1458

or

The IFPRI report focussing on the developing world
http://www.ifpri.org/publication/measuring-economic-impacts-transgenic-crops-developing-agriculture-during-first-decade

Here you will understand why asking about “yield” is the wrong question.

    Mary
    June 18, 2012
    7:23 pm

From the “you can make this up” files–in this report they trounce the “grey literature”. They are the grey literature!

pg 26: “Unpublished studies fall into the category of so-called “grey literature” – unpublished documents of unknown reliability.

Such grey literature stands in stark contrast with the gold standard of science, peer-reviewed publication. The peer-reviewed publication process, while far from perfect, is the best method that scientists have come up with to ensure reliability….”

Subsequently they flog a lot of this type of material. Then they cite the “independent” research from CRIIGEN, where one of the authors is on the board. And one of the papers they use repeatedly from CRIIGEN was funded in part by Greenpeace. (And one of the authors is a homeopath: Spiroux de Vendômois.)

pg 17: Marion–they also assert that mutation breeding-generated plants should be subject to the regulatory hurdles of GMOs. Do you think so too?

[Daws]

Its very easy to spot bullshit when there is bullshit. The biggest clue is this article pretends to be an informative unbiased scientific article, but is full of wiggle words and obvious bias. There are also too many half truths and outright lies for me to start debunking this. But almost every statement was a little off. Saying Bt crops doesn't reduce insecticide use (it does), because it turns plants into insecticides is just a weird statement. What it does is express a protein that under basic environments can erode chitin. Whether that is an insecticide doesn't matter, but describing it in the scariest possible terms is dishonest. Just one example.

Anyways I have to talk to over a hundred farmers tomorrow and I won't be able to contribute much.

Well thanks for the head start, from both of you. Thank god for the comments sections eh?

Glad to see you pop up anyway David, last night I did some searching for GM threads in the forums here and saw some very good posts by you from a couple years back. Actually I was even thinking at the time, "shoot if I don't get any replies to this, I'll just maybe email this guy..." too bad you're busy, but it happens. But you know feel free to poke your head back in, no deadline on this, so take your time.

One thing I was wondering overall, is this technically not even a peer-view publication, I mean it's not in a journal after all right? It looks like the group just put it out there themselves, would that be a correct assessment?

[SkepticalVegan]

no journal, not peer-reviewed. Its grey literature, the same kind they criticize in the report ironically.

[Daws]

Alright well that all helped me give it a right good trouncing....unfortunately given the internet I don't think this will quickly go away. Score one for Blue Marble and Global ID >.<

For now... 

What might be good now and in the long run would be a point by point addressing of how most blogs seem to be summarizing this mess:

Key points from the report

1.   Genetic engineering as used in crop development is not precise or predictable and has not been shown to be safe. The technique can result in the unexpected production of toxins or allergens in food that are unlikely to be spotted in current regulatory checks.

2.   GM crops, including some that are already in our food and animal feed supply, have shown clear signs of toxicity in animal feeding trials – notably disturbances in liver and kidney function and immune responses.

3.   GM proponents have dismissed these statistically significant findings as “not biologically relevant/significant”, based on scientifically indefensible arguments.

4.   Certain EU-commissioned animal feeding trials with GM foods and crops are often claimed by GM proponents to show they are safe. In fact, examination of these studies shows significant differences between the GM-fed and control animals that give cause for concern.

5.   GM foods have not been properly tested in humans, but the few studies that have been carried out in humans give cause for concern.

6.   The US FDA does not require mandatory safety testing of GM crops, and does not even assess the safety of GM crops but only “deregulates” them, based on assurances from biotech companies that they are “substantially equivalent” to their non-GM counterparts. This is like claiming that a cow with BSE is substantially equivalent to a cow that does not have BSE and is thus safe to eat! Claims of substantial equivalence cannot be justified on scientific grounds.

7.   The regulatory regime for GM foods is weakest in the US, where GM foods do not even have to be assessed for safety or labelled in the marketplace, but in most regions of the world regulations are inadequate to protect people’s health from the potential adverse effects of GM foods.

8.   In the EU, where the regulatory system is often claimed to be strict, minimal pre-market testing is required for a GMO and the tests are commissioned by the same companies that stand to profit from the GMO if it is approved – a clear conflict of interest.

9.   No long-term toxicological testing of GMOs on animals or testing on humans is required by any regulatory agency in the world.

10.   Biotech companies have used patent claims and intellectual property protection laws to restrict access of independent researchers to GM crops for research purposes. As a result, limited research has been conducted on GM foods and crops by scientists who are independent of the GM industry. Scientists whose work has raised concerns about the safety of GMOs have been attacked and discredited in orchestrated campaigns by GM crop promoters.

11.   Most GM crops (over 75%) are engineered to tolerate applications of herbicides. Where such GM crops have been adopted, they have led to massive increases in herbicide use.

12.   Roundup, the herbicide that over 50% of all GM crops are engineered to tolerate, is not safe or benign as has been claimed but has been found to cause malformations (birth defects), reproductive problems, DNA damage, and cancer in test animals. Human epidemiological studies have found an association between Roundup exposure and miscarriage, birth defects, neurological development problems, DNA damage, and certain types of cancer.

13.   A public health crisis has erupted in GM soy-producing regions of South America, where people exposed to spraying with Roundup and other agrochemicals sprayed on the crop report escalating rates of birth defects and cancer.

14.   A large number of studies indicate that Roundup is associated with increased crop diseases, especially infection with Fusarium, a fungus that causes wilt disease in soy and can have toxic effects on humans and livestock.

15.   Bt insecticidal GM crops do not sustainably reduce pesticide use but change the way in which pesticides are used: from sprayed on, to built in.

16.   Bt technology is proving unsustainable as pests evolve resistance to the toxin and secondary pest infestations are becoming common.

17.   GM proponents claim that the Bt toxin engineered into GM plants is safe because the natural form of Bt, long used as a spray by conventional and organic farmers, has a history of safe use. But the GM forms of Bt toxins are different from the natural forms and could have different toxic and allergenic effects.

18.    GM Bt toxin is not limited in its toxicity to insect pests. GM Bt crops have been found to have toxic effects on laboratory animals in feeding trials.

19.    GM Bt crops have been found to have toxic effects on non-target organisms in the environment.

20.    Bt toxin is not fully broken down in digestion and has been found circulating in the blood of pregnant women in Canada and in the blood supply to their foetuses.

21.    The no-till method of farming promoted with GM herbicide-tolerant crops, which avoids ploughing and uses herbicides to control weeds, is not more climate-friendly than ploughing. No-till fields do not store more carbon in the soil than ploughed fields when deeper levels of soil are measured.

22.    No-till increases the negative environmental impacts of soy cultivation, because of the herbicides used.

23.    Golden Rice, a beta-carotene-enriched rice, is promoted as a GM crop that could help malnourished people overcome vitamin A deficiency. But Golden Rice has not been tested for toxicological safety, has been plagued by basic development problems, and, after more than 12 years and millions of dollars of research funding, is still not ready for the market. Meanwhile, inexpensive and effective solutions to vitamin A deficiency are available but under-used due to lack of funding.

24.    GM crops are often promoted as a “vital tool in the toolbox” to feed the world’s growing population, but many experts question the contribution they could make, as they do not offer higher yields or cope better with drought than non-GM crops. Most GM crops are engineered to tolerate herbicides or to contain a pesticide – traits that are irrelevant to feeding the hungry.

25.    High adoption of GM crops among farmers is not a sign that the GM crop is superior to non-GM varieties, as once GM companies gain control of the seed market, they withdraw non-GM seed varieties from the market. The notion of “farmer choice” does not apply in this situation.

26.    GM contamination of non-GM and organic crops has resulted in massive financial losses by the food and feed industry, involving product recalls, lawsuits, and lost markets.

27.    When many people read about high-yielding, pest- and disease-resistant, drought-tolerant, and nutritionally improved super-crops, they think of GM. In fact, these are all products of conventional breeding, which continues to outstrip GM in producing such crops. The report contains a long list of these conventional crop breeding successes.

28.    Certain “supercrops” have been claimed to be GM successes when in fact they are products of conventional breeding, in some cases assisted by the non-GM biotechnology of marker assisted selection.

29.    Conventional plant breeding, with the help of non-GM biotechnologies such as marker assisted selection, is a safer and more powerful method than GM to produce new crop varieties required to meet current and future needs of food production, especially in the face of rapid climate change.

30.    Conventionally bred, locally adapted crops, used in combination with agroecological farming practices, offer a proven, sustainable approach to ensuring global food security."

Yeah....even the summaries are damn long >.<
That came from http://earthopensource.org/index.php/news/60-why-genetically-engineered-food-is-dangerous-new-report-by-genetic-engineers btw...

[SkepticalVegan]

1.   Genetic engineering as used in crop development is not precise or predictable and has not been shown to be safe. The technique can result in the unexpected production of toxins or allergens in food that are unlikely to be spotted in current regulatory checks.

 
do these people know nothing?

1.   Genetic engineering conventional breeding as used in crop development is not precise or predictable and has not been shown to be safe. The technique can result in the unexpected production of toxins or allergens in food that are unlikely to be spotted in current regulatory checks.

Celery is an example of this http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=10977&page=44

Its should be noted that to date no approved GM crop has caused demonstrable human harm

[SkepticalVegan]

2.   GM crops, including some that are already in our food and animal feed supply, have shown clear signs of toxicity in animal feeding trials – notably disturbances in liver and kidney function and immune responses.

look at feeding trails that utilize conventional crops, you can find some scary but erroneous results there as well. The vast majority of feeding trial demonstrate no harm.

[SkepticalVegan]

3.   GM proponents have dismissed these statistically significant findings as “not biologically relevant/significant”, based on scientifically indefensible arguments.

says who? with what expertise?

[Daws]

3.   GM proponents have dismissed these statistically significant findings as “not biologically relevant/significant”, based on scientifically indefensible arguments.

says who? with what expertise?

Yeah that's the most annoying part of all this, they dont even bother citing the pages, you just know you can trust them "because they're on your side!"