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[Lyn Farel]

At last we start to see more of these studies. I find them particularily alarming since it has been almost 15 years now that GMOs are being widely used, 97% of them in north america. However it does not only concerns north america considering the produced pesticides are sold all around the world, as well as the remaining 3%.

More on this FAQ.

On a related note I am also worried about the dramatic collapse of bee colonies all around the world since they start to link it to pesticides too, even if the issue is more complex.

[Jev North]

Quirked an eyebrow. Little more. If the effects are nearly as dramatic as purported, North America would basically be depopulated by now. The safe bet is it's a dodgy study hyped by anti-GMO groups.

[Lyn Farel]

Who to trust more ? Scientists paid by Monsanto or independant studies done in universities ?

Anti-GMO lobby ? That's how they have been labelled yes, though some other studies following the same patterns have been done in Japan too (don't remember the name). I call that scientific slander by corporatist lobbies, nothing more.

Also, don't dorget here it is about rats, and not humans. We don't know yet the effects it can have on us, though the safe bet indeed would be more like extended periods of time, maybe decades and not merely 2 years, and a lot harder to detect in the mass of cancer afflictions.

To be clear, I am far from being an anti-GMO proponent, and I am pretty sure the scientist here is not. I can try to dig it up and find old interviews.

[Nmaro Makari]

A worthwhile study with some concerning results and deeper issues concerning commercial GMOs

However, this is inevitably going to be hijacked by Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and other backwards-thinking organisations and brought out as justification for obstructing legitimate research such as that at Rothamstead.

And Jev has a good point also, North America has been eating GMO for years and we've yet to see a PG&E-esque public health epedemic, or even anything close.

[Morwen Lagann]

And Jev has a good point also, North America has been eating GMO for years and we've yet to see a PG&E-esque public health epedemic, or even anything close.

Clearly those Americans aren't fat/obese. They're walking tumors. :V

[Jev North]

Who to trust more ? Scientists paid by Monsanto or independant studies done in universities?

It's not just corporations that can benefit from dodgy studies. I suppose Séralini is independent, but I also note there's a book by his hand and a documentary on the subject coming out exactly one week after the publication date of the study. About an effect claimed to be very dramatic, but apparently not dramatic enough to pass a simple p-value test.

Ed: Which is not to say that this is definitely bullshit; I'll gladly leave that judgment to actual experts. I just don't trust the guy unconditionally on the sole basis that he's not Monsanto.

[Saede Riordan]

I'm just going to keep eating my home grown vegetables since they're cheaper anyway, and try not to worry about this.

[Morwen Lagann]

Until the average human is walking around looking like this, there's not much worth panicking over. Most things you eat will have some connection to GMOs, directly or not. (Eat meat? If it's not fish, chances are it was grown on feed that was modified.)

Prop 37 in California (mandatory labeling of anything with GMOs in it, among other things) is only worrisome to me because of the precedent that you can hold a store owner accountable for the failures of the manufacturers, and because it will make food prices go up in the long run even more than they are already due to the need to design new labels and figure out how companies want to handle the fact that this requirement would only apply in California. Cost is precisely the reason I don't buy into the whole "omg organic is so much better for you and won't, like, give you THE CANCER" thing. Who gives a damn if it's "better" for me if I can't afford to pay the extra costs - what essentially amounts to a luxury tax (or, more accurately, given the attitudes of many organics proponents, a "snob tax")? If I can't afford it, I won't be using it for very long - and as a result, I'm back to square one. (Please note that I do agree with the position that the consumer has the right to know what is in the product they are buying - I disagree with the likely result of further increasing food prices and the additional requirements on people who shouldn't be held responsible.)

The politics and scare tactics used by both sides are shameful and just make me think of the whole nonsense with bird flu and SARS. Neither of those was actually a problem if you didn't act like a complete idiot and washed your hands regularly and covered your mouth and nose when coughing/sneezing, despite all of the the-sky-is-falling tripe running around.

I'd rather know I'm not biting into a fruit or veggie that's full of worms and shit, than fuss over some tiny risk of getting OMG THE CANCER 50 years down the road.

[orange]

I'm just going to keep eating my home grown vegetables since they're cheaper anyway, and try not to worry about this.

Your home grown vegetables are likely Genetically Modified Organisms from their wild counterparts.  How the modification was done may not have been in a lab, splicing in Jelly-Fish genes into the Tomato.

Before we started speeding up the process of modification, it was called breeding.

[Lyn Farel]

Who to trust more ? Scientists paid by Monsanto or independant studies done in universities?

It's not just corporations that can benefit from dodgy studies. I suppose Séralini is independent, but I also note there's a book by his hand and a documentary on the subject coming out exactly one week after the publication date of the study. About an effect claimed to be very dramatic, but apparently not dramatic enough to pass a simple p-value test.

Ed: Which is not to say that this is definitely bullshit; I'll gladly leave that judgment to actual experts. I just don't trust the guy unconditionally on the sole basis that he's not Monsanto.

Yes I have always taken his studies with caution at first since he was one of the only scientists to have such strong results, especially in the past with another similar study that got criticized or dismissed by other scientists for its unconventionnal methods. I have never been able to tell who was right or wrong but eventually he and his team seem to explain here exactly on which basis this experiment was conducted and what scientific process they followed, apparently keeping in mind what crippled his last one.

I also am more reliant on these sources since he seems not to be the only one to get similar results. And well, as long as his study is proven true and legitimate (the governement is currently creating a commission to get a certificate on this one, however since the governement has always been quite reluctant towards GMO I would also love to see an european commission working on it), well, the facts are here. I find them worrying.

I'm just going to keep eating my home grown vegetables since they're cheaper anyway, and try not to worry about this.

Your home grown vegetables are likely Genetically Modified Organisms from their wild counterparts.  How the modification was done may not have been in a lab, splicing in Jelly-Fish genes into the Tomato.

Before we started speeding up the process of modification, it was called breeding.

Breeding has nothing to do with GMOs. You will never obtain a plant that produces or absords pesticides with mere breeding.

However, it is probable that the said home grown vegetables have breeded with GMOs.

And Jev has a good point also, North America has been eating GMO for years and we've yet to see a PG&E-esque public health epedemic, or even anything close.

Clearly those Americans aren't fat/obese. They're walking tumors. :V

I don't see why they would be... 

We are not living in borderlands.

[Morwen Lagann]

It was a joke directed at, and at the expense of, the alarmist attitude displayed by the (rabidly) anti-GMO people.

America has a pretty noticeable problem with obesity (it isn't alone), but I'm sure that if those people could spin it so that obesity is the result of GMOs in food, they would - they're already trying to pin other diseases on it, including cancer, (hence the "walking tumors" bit) so it's hardly a stretch. It's what alarmists do: freak out about shit not worth freaking out about, and try to make other people freak out about it too by blowing things WAY out of proportion.

Also, the pictures of rats you included in your post reminded me of that one particular zombie from L4D (linked in my second post).

[Esna Pitoojee]

While the results are initially shocking, there are a couple things here that make me very unwilling to accept them at face value.

For instance, the researchers apparently used a breed of laboratory rat that is prone to runaway mammary tumors, especially if it isn't given a strict diet. The enormous tumors they picture are not unknown in healthy specimens of this rat.

The researchers have also been acting a bit wierd - for instance, refusing to allow people to view the paper prior to actual publication unless they signed an NDA that would prevent them from seeking comment from other researchers on the work (although this may sound like scientists just protecting themselves from plagiarism, it's a apparently quite uncommon).

[Saede Riordan]

I'm just going to keep eating my home grown vegetables since they're cheaper anyway, and try not to worry about this.

Your home grown vegetables are likely Genetically Modified Organisms from their wild counterparts.  How the modification was done may not have been in a lab, splicing in Jelly-Fish genes into the Tomato.

Before we started speeding up the process of modification, it was called breeding.

Actually 90% of the stuff I grow is organic and heirloom. I figure I might as well if I'm going to be growing stuff.

[Wanoah]

The politics and scare tactics used by both sides are shameful and just make me think of the whole nonsense with bird flu and SARS. Neither of those was actually a problem if you didn't act like a complete idiot and washed your hands regularly and covered your mouth and nose when coughing/sneezing, despite all of the the-sky-is-falling tripe running around.

Canny campaigners have learnt from the methods employed by the tobacco companies over the years. Unfortunately, that means that the waters are very muddy for even fairly clear-cut issues like climate change. Also, cf crazy creationists: they might be crazy, but they have some great methods for planting seeds of doubt in people's minds.

Personally, I'm not assured by the words issuing from corporate mouthpieces on any given issue. Corporations exist to make money for their shareholders, and many of them behave very badly indeed in the pursuit of that profit. Even companies that operate in what you expect to be fairly innocuous industries, like confectionery, can act in destructive and anti-human ways. It's not just the arms manufacturers and the tobacco companies that profit from outright malice. Just look at Nestlé: essentially Evil Inc.

So, while I place a strong emphasis on scientific method, I also look at the behaviour of the pharmaceutical giants as a general guide to how large companies operate in areas of scientific endeavour. Suffice to say that much could and should be improved upon; and in my opinion we need much better control over these companies by our nation states and international organisations. We probably need sweeping reforms of most of our democracies to weaken the endemic (yet strangely accepted and acceptable) corruption that runs rampant through most of the western nations. We need politicians that aren't in bed with the corporate whores to represent us. There's little evidence that anything has been learnt from the banking crises, so I hold out little hope for meaningful change.

When it comes to the GM stuff, I have grave concerns. I'm reminded of DDT a little. There were many benefits to using DDT, but the long-term consequences were very bad indeed. Plenty of people with vested interests campaigned long and hard to convince people that everything was fine. Likewise, as far as I'm concerned, the worry with modifying significant parts of our food supply is that there will be some unintended long-term consequence that will only emerge in the decades to come. Vested interests will, of course, attempt a cover up. Then they will try to discredit and ruin any potential threats. They may well succeed. Even if they fail, it may just be too late to stuff the genie back in the bottle as we look forward to a future without wheat or something similarly dire. I actually doubt that there will be terrible consequences of that nature, but I have no confidence in the people who stand to profit at all: I know they will fuck us over in a heartbeat.

[Morwen Lagann]

I'm not saying the concerns are unwarranted or invalid, nor that I necessarily believe the corporate mouthpieces. The global-scale cockups that could occur due to overdependence on GM worry me too - especially because some of them, like the pesticide-resistant weeds, are already starting to happen - but people going "OMG DOOMSDAY SCENARIO" in response a single research trial that's clearly been done improperly can go throw themselves off a cliff like the lemmings they are.

Being concerned and investigating and researching the matter carefully and methodically is one thing. Jumping to conclusions based on shoddy research (if it can even be called that given the screwup of using already cancer-prone rats) is another entirely, and I have no respect for the alarmist sheep who make up the latter camp.