Food, glorious (genetically modified) food!

Discussion in 'The big picture' started by Douglas J.E. Barnes, Jan 1, 2008.

  1. Douglas J.E. Barnes

    Douglas J.E. Barnes Junior Member

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    Out of frustration with my lack of time to address a certain pro-GE guy (Mark Abrams), I'm dropping this following link here for those who are not warwalking on a battery like I am and would like to add their two cents to this debate: https://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/12/27/6011/
     
  2. dylanz

    dylanz Junior Member

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    Well presented and articulated Douglas. I'll chime in if I find the time myself (kids being the primary deterrent in this case).
     
  3. Douglas J.E. Barnes

    Douglas J.E. Barnes Junior Member

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    Win my argument part 45.

    Thanks. Ordinarily, I would not waste time on it. However, I think it is important to defend progressive newswires.

    Perhaps you or someone has the time to point out that his pooh poohing of the study I cited is unwarranted, particularly focusing on the word "may" (like the word "may" on cigarette cartons saying "Smoking may cause birth defects"); and point out his rebuttal of the precautionary principle amount to nothing more than saying "Oh pishah." It seems to me I delivered facts and he delivered assertions.

    I'd like to get in there more, but I am going off of battery from inside my car in -14C weather. (Insert emoticons of freezing smilie.)
     
  4. Ojo

    Ojo Junior Member

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    I registered and tried to post, they don't show up. When I try again it says, "you already said that" and doesn't post it. It's been 4 hours I'm still waiting for them to show up.


    better watch out for the march of the 'grey goo' too.
    https://tinyurl.com/2dhpqa
     
  5. Douglas J.E. Barnes

    Douglas J.E. Barnes Junior Member

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    Ojo, I'm sorry to hear that. Perhaps if you try again but with minor text changes? :?
     
  6. Ojo

    Ojo Junior Member

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    I've been reading there for ten years. First news site I visit everyday. I'll post it here too, just in case I don't get it up there for awhile. Keep up the good work.

    _________________________________

    On 26 June 2006 Mathaba News published an article headlined ”Monsanto tells a pack of lies in South Africa”. That article exposed how Monsanto had told the South African Advertising Authority (ASA) that MON 863 was not their product. MON 863 was in fact their product and had been found to cause damage to to rats in independent trials in Europe. Monsanto had in fact made an application for this product to be released in South Africa. The ASA ordered Monsanto SA to withdraw its advert which depicted a mother with two children in a kitchen looking at a cake. Among other false claims the advert stated ”no substantiated scientific or medical negative reactions to GM foods have ever been reported”.

    The advert also falsely claimed that genetically modified foods contained enhanced proteins, vitamins and anti-oxidants and removed allergens. Whilst there was an uproar from responsible parenting organisations and in fact proof that no commercial GM products had ever been commercially released with the enhanced claims, the ASA found it unnecessary to deal with those aspects. It ordered the removal of the advert based on the false claim that ”No substantiated scientific or medical to GM foods have ever been reported.”

    During the hearing, Monsanto attempted to distract the worthy panel of arbitrators, headed by Justice King, a no non-sense judge who rose to fame as the doyen of ”Corporate Governance”, by arguing the merits of GM products as against the truthfulness of their claims. They produced a letter from Covance Laboratories in the USA, which claimed that they were an independent laboratory and which ”praised the benefits of GM Corn.” Justice King ruled that the benefits of GM corn had nothing to do with the case in front of them.

    Covance Laboratories have a history of abuse and have been fined on several occasions in Europe and the USA for the appalling conditions under which experiments are conducted and for outright vicious treatment of laboratory animals. Their track record is second only to Monsanto’s long history of convictions for racketeering, bribery and corruption. Monsanto clearly lives under the misconception that South African judges are stupid, because apart from the serious submissions mentioned above they would otherwise not have presented Covance Laboratories as an ”independent” source in order to verify their safety claim.

    Covance USA’s support of Monsanto is even more surprising given the fact that European researchers employed by Covance Laboratories (Europe) discovered and reported numerous biological effects on rats fed MON863, i.e. blood stream anomalies that varied by sex (increase in white blood cell levels and lymphocytes in males, decrease in new red blood cells in females, increase in female blood sugar levels, in addition to renal lesions (inflammations, kidney stones) and variations in kidney weight.

    The ink on the judgement ordering the withdrawal of this false advert had hardly dried when, on 21 August 2007, Kobus Steenkamp, Marketing Manager for Monsanto, issued a statement headed: ”ASA accepts Monsanto’s ’GM Is Safe’ advertisement” and Steenkamp added: ”The Advertising Standards Authority has now approved this advertisement and accepts that the facts have been verified by independent and reliable sources.” He added ”The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has accepted the revised wording from Monsanto, which states, ”no substantiated scientific or medical negative reactions to GM foods have ever been reported”.

    According to the article ”Another spin by GM Giant Monsanto” published by The South African NGO net, the Advertising Standards Authority categorically denied Monsanto’s statement. Monsanto however went ahead and published their advert with the same picture and wording except for the added ”No substantiated medical or scientific...” part.

    Mark Wells, the organic farmer, and founder member of Farmers Legal Action Group, South Africa who was the successful applicant in the previous incident, once more challenged the advert. On 19 December 2007 Judge King of the ASA ruled that despite the amended wording not being exactly the same, the overall communication remains unchanged. A hypothetical reasonable person would interpret the claim to mean that tests were conducted in this regard and no negative reactions were found. The Respondent, Monsanto, is therefore found guilty of breaching the previous ruling.

    -- Readers may contact Trevor Wells of the Farmers Legal Action Group-South Africa for PDF copies of the full decision. /www.flag-sa.org/index.htm>
    https://www.nwrage.org/index.php?name=Ne ... e&sid=2042
    https://www.nwrage.org/
    https://portland.indymedia.org/en/topic/gmo/
    https://archive.corporatewatch.org/genetics/genetics.htm
     
  7. Douglas J.E. Barnes

    Douglas J.E. Barnes Junior Member

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    Unfortunately, I didn't see your post show up, Ojo. I did just post reply to him, though.

    Unless there is something more than a demand for everything to be referenced to a source up to his undefined standards, or more than him essentially saying 'oh pishah,' Any further responses will simply be "Scroll up."
     
  8. Ojo

    Ojo Junior Member

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    Google or metacrawler will still find it if people do a search.
    https://www.metacrawler.com/
    I've battled the think tank puppets in forums for ten years, they keep getting more money and I keep getting less Time. I think we're losing the "dumbing down" race and sometimes I even feel that people have become so stupid, corrupt and destructive that it's Time nature puts and end to the nonsense. If all we have to propagate is lies and hate why bother thrying to preserve it?
    _____________________________________________________________


    50 Harmful Effects of Genetically Modified Foods (excerpt)

    Biotechnology attempts a deeper "control" over nature. But a powerful temporary control is illusionary. For example, a farmer in Ottawa planted three different kinds of GM canola seeds that came from the three leading producers (Monsanto's Roundup, Cyanamid's Pursuit, and Aventis' Liberty). At first, he was happy to see he needed to use less of costly herbicides. But within just three years, "superweeds" had taken in the genes of all three types of plants! This ultimately forced him to use not only more herbicides, but far more lethal products.



    The central problem underlying all of this technology is not just its short-term benefits and long-term drawbacks, but the overall attempt to "control" living nature based on an erroneous mechanistic view.

    " Bioengineering" thus offers a contradiction in terms. "Bio" refers to life, what is not mechanistically predictable or controllable - and "engineering" refers to making the blueprints for machines that are predictable - but not alive. They are dead. Thus there is the joining of what is living with what applies to the opposite.

    What is patentable also needs to be mentally "distinctive" - fixed or mostly unchanging in our minds to obtain an ownership or right-to-control patent. Again, something unchanging is not constantly adapting to its surrounding environment. It is less alive, and strategies to maintain that are often deadly. For example, much of GM technology is directed at eliminating surrounding biological environment - competing animals and plants, soaking them with lethal toxins. Secondly, there are terminator plants that do not reproduce a second generation - preventing a subsequent generation from escaping the controlling patented mold. In contrast to nature's rainforests teeming with life, GM technology has planted forests of flowerless, fruitless "terminator trees." They are not habitats for life, but exude poisons from every leaf, killing all but a few insects. Thirdly, GM companies have gone on multi-billion dollar buying sprees, purchasing seed companies and destroying their non-patented (potentially competitive) seed stocks. Time magazine called the widespread consequences of this effort a global Death of Birth. All of this is why "biotechnology," in its naked essence, has be tagged by some as thano- ( meaning death) technology.
    excerpt
    https://www.cqs.com/50harm.htm

    Rats fed GMO potatoes had smaller livers, hearts, testicles and brains,
    damaged immune systems, and showed structural changes in their white blood
    cells making them more vulnerable to infection and disease compared to other
    rats fed non-GMO potatoes. It got worse. Thymus and spleen damage showed up;
    enlarged tissues, including the pancreas and intestines; and there were
    cases of liver atrophy as well as significant proliferation of stomach and
    intestines cells that could be a sign of greater future risk of cancer.
    Equally alarming - this all happened after 10 days of testing, and the
    changes persisted after 110 days that's the human equivalent of 10 years.
    >
    > GM foods today saturate our diet. Over 80% of all supermarket processed
    foods contain them. Others include grains like rice, corn and wheat; legumes
    like soybeans and soy products; vegetable oils; soft drinks; salad
    dressings; vegetables and fruits; dairy products including eggs; meat and
    other animal products; and even infant formula plus a vast array of hidden
    additives and ingredients in processed foods (like in tomato sauce, ice
    cream and peanut butter). They're unrevealed to consumers because labeling
    is prohibited yet the more of them we eat, the greater the potential threat
    to our health.
    >
    > Today, we're all lab rats in an uncontrolled, unregulated mass human
    experiment the results of which are unknown. The risks from it are beyond
    measure, it will take many years to learn them, and when they're finally
    revealed it will be too late to reverse the damage if it's proved GM
    products harm human health as independent experts strongly believe. Once GM
    seeds are introduced to an area, the genie is out of the bottle for keeps.
    >
    > Despite the enormous risks, however, Washington and growing numbers of
    governments around the world in parts of Europe, Asia, Latin America and
    Africa now allow these products to be grown in their soil or imported.
    They're produced and sold to consumers because agribusiness giants like
    Monsanto, DuPont, Dow AgriSciences and Cargill have enormous clout to demand
    it and a potent partner supporting them - the US government and its
    agencies, including the Departments of Agriculture and State, FDA, EPA and
    even the defense establishment. World Trade Organization (WTO) Trade-Related
    Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) patent rules also back them
    along with industry-friendly WTO rulings like the February 7, 2006 one.
    >
    > It favored a US challenge against European GMO regulatory policies in
    spite of strong consumer sentiment against these foods and ingredients on
    the continent. It also violated the Biosafety Protocol that should let
    nations regulate these products in the public interest, but it doesn't
    because WTO trade rules sabotaged it. Nonetheless, anti-GMO activism
    persists, consumers still have a say, and there are hundreds of GMO-free
    zones around the world, including in the US. That and more is needed to take
    on the agribusiness giants that so far have everything going their way.
    >
    > In "Seeds of Deception," Jeffrey Smith did a masterful job explaining the
    dangers of GM foods and ingredients. Engdahl explains them as well but goes
    much further brilliantly in his blockbuster book on this topic. It's the
    story of a powerful family and a "small socio-political American elite
    (that) seeks to establish control over the very basis of human survival" -
    future life through the food we eat. The book's introduction says it "reads
    (like) a crime story." It's also a nightmare but one that's very real and
    threatening.
    >
    > This review covers the book in-depth because of its importance. It's an
    extraordinary work that "reveals a diabolical World of profit-driven
    political intrigue (and) government corruption and coercion" that's part of
    a decades-long global scheme for total world dominance. The book deserves
    vast exposure and must be read in full for the whole disturbing story. It's
    hoped the material below will encourage readers to do it in their own
    self-interest and to marshal mass consumer actions to place food safety
    above corporate profits.
    https://lists.ifas.ufl.edu/cgi-bin/wa.ex ... S=&P=10200
    https://lists.ifas.ufl.edu/cgi-bin/wa.ex ... L=sanet-mg
     
  9. Ojo

    Ojo Junior Member

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    Genetically-engineered corn has been approved to enter the New Zealand food chain.
    https://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/1/sto ... d=10483548

    The biotech industry says that millions have been eating GM foods without ill effect.This is misleading.

    * About 100 people died and 5-10,000 to fell seriously ill when they consumed the food supplement L-tryptophan. Only those who consumed the variety that was genetically modified became ill. That brand had minute, but deadly contaminants that would easily pass through current regulations today. If the disease it created had not been rare and acute, with crippling and deadly symptoms, the GM supplement might never have been traced as the cause. Once discovered, however, industry and government covered up facts and diverted the blame. Even the FDA testimony before Congress withheld vital information.107-125

    For a summary of the L-tryptophan issue, click here. For an in-depth presentation of the issue, see Toxic L-tryptophan: Shedding Light on a Mysterious Epidemic, by William E. Crist.

    * Milk from rbGH-treated cows contains an increased amount of the hormone IGF-1, which is one of the highest risk factors associated with breast and prostate cancer, among others.94-97
    * Soy allergies skyrocketed by 50% in the UK, coinciding with the introduction of GM soy imports from the U.S.
    https://www.seedsofdeception.com/Public/ ... /index.cfm

    You're eating WHAT?
    https://www.responsibletechnology.org/ut ... bjectID=90
     
  10. Ojo

    Ojo Junior Member

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    How many Australians are aware of the hordes of scientists — geneticists, agronomists, epidemiologists, toxicologists, cancer pathologists, soil biologists — who vehemently warn against GM food? How many are aware that, despite rhetoric of drought-tolerant GM crops flooding our media, no such crop has been commercially developed or even field-trialled? Has any journalist questioned why chemical giants Bayer and Monsanto refuse to produce empirical, peer-reviewed evidence to back utopian claims (greater long-term yields, fewer chemicals, feed the world, tolerate drought, boost the economy, save malnourished children) for patented GM food crops?

    Newman says the widely-reported spin of greater yields from GM crops isn’t backed by evidence. In a long-term study of official US Government data, agronomist Dr Charles Benbrook reported: ‘The evidence is now overwhelming and indisputable that average yields of [GM] Roundup-ready varieties are about 4-6 per cent less than conventional varieties.’ Benbrook warned: ‘Australia should avoid the problems and market losses that the US experienced with GM.’

    Finally, there were allies like celebrated geneticist Dr David Suzuki, who has said: ‘Any scientist or politician who tells you [GM] foods are safe is either very stupid or lying.’
    excerpts
    https://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2007/06/146530.php

    [​IMG]
     
  11. Michaelangelica

    Michaelangelica Junior Member

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    Re: Food, glorious (genetically modified) food!

    "Synthetic chemicals are good for me."

    "Pharmaceuticals are priced in a fair way that helps drug companies afford to find new cures."

    "Food comes from factories, not dirt."

    "The planet is able to absorb an unlimited amount of pollution from human activity. There is no cause for concern."

    "Global warming is a hoax. Human activity has no effect on the climate."

    "Man has conquered nature. We no longer need to concern ourselves with learning from or protecting nature.
    Whatever we need can be invented in a lab."

    "The way to prosperity requires the use of genetically-modified foods and patented seed technologies controlled by caring, compassionate corporations like Monsanto."
    https://www.naturalnews.com/025847.html
     

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