Monsanto Protection Act Sneaks Through Senate

I agree, there has been a major decline in flavor in many of my favorite fruits and vegetables. I love tomatoes but I will not touch them unless I grow them myself or purchase them from a local farmer. The tasteless red blobs they try to pass off as tomatoes in the supermarket are not even worth eating.

 

Yeah, yuk to supermarket tomatoes. They're made of wood aren't they? We grow a variety of beefsteak I absolutely love...Best Boy I think and a low acid variety I don't like as much but are easier on my stomach and still miles better than the store bought things.

 

They have been trying to force feed us this crap for years knowing that it causes cancer among many other health issues. Mexico and certain European countrys have outlawed the production and distribution of GMO products because testing showed extremely cancerous growths in mice after only four months of them ingesting the poison. Go organic, its safer.:ack2:

 

Totally agree. btw Im gonna give you a +rep once it'll let me! You're a smart woman!

 

LOL, extremely cancerous huh? Linky to the studies referenced or it didn't happen.

 

^^^ That's just about everyone, isn't it?

 

joanofSnarc,

Are you claiming that the original analysis of the GMO corn which was obtained from Monsanto through court actions (a court case lost by Monsanto), and also by courtesy of governments and Greenpeace lawyers, and that which was provided by the Swedish Board of Agriculture is all somehow a ruse--a conspiracy--to get Monsanto? Do you believe that Monsanto would sue the International Journal of Biological Sciences for publishing a study which unjustly condemns their product? I do!

I find it odd that you, a scientist, would disregard a study done by a peer-reviewed science journal on the basis of their mention of Greenpeace lawyers being one of the sources they tapped. They also used Monsanto, and other governments.

Myself, I would wonder why Monsanto needed to be taken to court to be forced to give up the analysis of their product in the first place. That seems to indicate something . . .

 

Nope. I'm not claiming that at all.

I don't believe anything at all about it. If they do, they do. If they don't, they don't. No need for belief there.

Others did the statistical re-analysis. The journal only published it.

Greenpeace is rife with quacks. I neither like nor trust them and as far as I'm concerned, anything they have a hand in is tainted and colored by their dogmatism.

Yes they did. So what? There are lots of other studies whose researchers have nothing to do with either Monsanto or Greenpeace and report the findings of original research rather than combing through Monsanto's research to try to find errors or misleading conclusions. Of course Monsanto is biased toward positive findings. They have a vested interest in that. As does Greenpeace have a vested interest in negative findings. I would just rather look at something more likely to be objective.

It indicates that they spend huge amounts of money developing a product and are attempting to protect the information about its development that would be obvious if such studies were made public. Not much different than the Colonel trying to protect his secret recipe of 11 herbs and spices.

 

No, joan, the information they wouldn't give up until a court ordered them to do so had nothing to do with their "recipe" for their GMO product; it had to do with how they tested it for safety.

 

From the link you provided: We support the use of the substantial equivalence concept as part of the safety assessment of biotechnology-derived foods.

Are you familiar with the details of that concept?

 

Yes.

ETA: ...and for anyone who isn't familiar with it, here is a good review of the interpretations and protocols of several different health regulatory/safety assessment organizations in regard to the above mentioned concept.

 

Then you understand that the concept of substantial equivalence, as pertaining to GMOs is that they are spared from extensive safety testing on the assumption that they are no more dangerous than their non-genetically engineered counterpart?

 

Also of interest is that the Brussels EU scientific food regulatory organization, having already approved GMOs in 2009 didn't like the results of the long-term Seralini study that was published in the International Journal of Biological Sciences because they had already followed the recommendation of the European Food Safety Administration (EFSA) without first conducting independent testing. In fact, they admitted in their official journal that they relied on information supplied by the applicant (Monsanto) and the scientific comments submitted by Member States and the report of the Spanish Competent Authority and its Biosafety Commission. EFSA also admitted that the Monsanto tests on rats were for only 90 days. Seralini and the co-authors of the study I provided noted that the toxic effects and deaths of GMO-fed rats took place well after 90 days, a reason why longer-term studied were obviously not only warranted, but needed.

The Spanish report referred to above, which was cited by EFSA, was neither convincing nor independent. It states that "according to the current state of scientific knowledge, and after examining the existing information and data provided by the Monsanto Company, the Spanish Commission on Biosafety could give a favorable opinion to the commercialization in the EU of maize NK603…" Not surprisingly the scientific comments submitted by Member States seemed to include Spain and Holland which applied to license the Monsanto seed in the first place.

 

Also of note is the report by Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO) which found that more than half of the GMO panel experts who signed the approval of GMO products had conflicts of interest. The conflicts ranged from receiving research funding from the biotech industry, being a member or collaborator in a pro-biotech industry association, to writing or reviewing industry-sponsored publications. Some conflicts revealed a conflict of scientific interests, with some panel members involved in working on the creation of transgenic plants – including potatoes–with antibiotic-resistant marker genes–including nptII.

 

This article - Naturally Occurring Food Toxins helps explain, in great detail, why food safety needs to be assessed initially in this relative way rather than in a more direct or objective way. It's a really long article and I've only made it about 2/3 of the way through it, but it's quite fascinating and worth the read if you have lots of time on your hands . In a nutshell, many of the foods we eat contain natural toxins and substances that can cause deleterious health effects. Thus the first tier in any toxicological investigation of a gmo has to be relative to the unmodified organism. Only when this initial comparison shows an effect beyond that of the non-modified food is it then reasonable to conduct more specific toxicology tests.

 

This is only for the better of us.

 

From your link: It is concluded, among others that, that application of the principle of substantial equivalence has proven adequate, and that no alternative adequate safety assessment strategies are available.

What does that mean?

 

No, it's not an assumption. They are only spared from extensive testing if they prove to be no more toxic than their non-modified counterpart. If a GM food shows no deleterious effect beyond that of the non-modified food, why should it require further (expensive) testing?

 

Which link? I've posted several, some of them quite long.