The Future of GM Technology...

leopold

The NZFSA policies and procedures on GM foods can be seen at :
http://www.foodstandards.gov.au/_srcfiles/GM Foods_text_pp_final.pdf

If you wish to read it all, feel free. It will take some time.

As a f'rinstance, Roundup Ready soya beans were shown to have no measurable adverse effects, which can read in the above reference.

On the Royal Society missives on potatoes, I have posted two separate references already in this thread. If you were too lazy to read them, that is your problem.

Let me restate my case.
While I accept that everything in life carries some level of risk, and that has to include GM foods, the situation today is that over 16 years of hundreds of millions of people eating a range of GM foods, not a single case of measurable harm from eating that food, no matter how small, has surfaced, where the harm is due to the genetic modification. Therefore, so far GM foods have a 100% safety record. This statement is one of fact, not opinion.


Some foods that have never been released to the public did have potential problems, but that is what testing and regulation is for. The GM foods that are released carry such a low level of risk that only the terminally paranoid should get their knickers in a twist about them.

 

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when you search for GM safety or GMO safety that is all you find, guidelines.
there are very, very, few peer reviewed reports of any kind.
NCBI has, on more than one occasion, mentioned the lack of independent testing and went so far as to say the GM industry is keeping its data secret.
these are serious charges skeptical.
how can you not see that is, well i was going to say a mystery but then i started thinking about putzai. i don't think i would want to lose my job either.

 

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leopold

Pusztai lost his job due to incompetence, as confirmed by the British Royal Society. Of course he denies that. Wouldn't you?

My view always has been that 16 years of real world experience tells more than 1000 laboratory experiments. Do you not agree?

 

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yes, i probably would.

not necessarily.
the reality of today is not the reality of 10000 years from now.
a properly set up lab experiment could return those results.

 

ULTRA...as much as I really do like you, you never did answer my questions back in post # 197...

Because, again, horizontal transfer/DNA uptake is absolutely real. I got to do it myself with the little student kit thingy.

However, it's usually ONLY between prokaryote bacteria and/or any DNA that happens to be floating by (Like in gastric juices, where things are getting broken up).

So I am going to cautiously maintain that it's pretty unlikely (NOT TOTALLY IMPOSSIBLE) that GM genes would get spliced into the TISSUES of those people/animals who eat them.

But the bacteria in the digestive system can easily uptake ambient DNA...it's why tourists have to boil the unfiltered tapwater in Mexico for more that 5 minutes-you not only have to kill the bacteria in the drinking water, but denature the DNA of said bacteria in the water, else your own bacteria will uptake that DNA and...

Explosive diarrhea for about a week...also known as Moctezuma's revenge.

So I think the idea that your gut flora could start making BT toxin after eating a raw or lightly cooked BT-producing GM veggie is...
Something that ought to be checked. Really.

Wouldn't be that hard, either-animal subjects not needed...

 

leopold

Just a comment. You have suggested that GM companies keep toxicology data secret.

I find that hard to understand. While I have no real idea how things are managed in other countries, I do know how it operates here in NZ, and I am pretty sure it is not much different elsewhere.

A company applies to have a product registered so it can be sold. The same thing happens, with differences in detail only for pesticides, pharmaceuticals, food additives, and GM crops or foods. Forms have to be filled out with backing data. The backing data in most cases fills entire filing cabinets! The amount of information required is massive.

If the company involved tries to keep vital toxicology information secret, their product does not get registered, and they cannot sell it. Simple as that.

So how the hell can they keep all that data secret?

Of course, a lot of data is classified as commercially confidential. This is so that the competitors cannot use the information that the first company spent many millions of dollars acquiring. But, even if it is kept secure, it is used by regulatory officials to determine if the product can be used safely. And all that "secret" data is stored in the regulatory authority's filing cabinets or computer files for ready reference by any official who needs it.

 

Oh? What if they don't keep it secret?

Exhibit #1:

http://www.lawyersandsettlements.com/articles/drugs-medical/fda-00118.html
Exhibit# 2:

http://www.drugalert.org/news/2010/08/23/roche-fda-knew-about-accutane-side-effects-approval

So, Monsanto is answerable to the FDA also. The FDA has a history of, at least, approving drugs with known hazards

 

Chimpkin

As I said before, that does not explain the approvals given in a large number of other nations. About 80 countries are now growing GM crops, and GM food is being legally consumed in an even larger number of nations.

Are you suggesting that all the regulatory authorities of all those nations are corrupt or incompetent?

 

Are they all doing independent testing, or simply accepting that the FDA has cleared it, therefore it's ok?

And if they are doing a lot of independent testing, is there somewhere I can see the results of this in English?

 

Chimpkin

Obviously, I cannot know what every one of all those nations are doing. I doubt they rely 100% on FDA. In fact, I know they don't. So they will all be doing their own evaluations to varying extents. I guess some will take into account that which FDA have decided, but few if any will rely on that more than up to a point.

 

Not one infection ever measured... Commercial science is not scientific. You are talking about infections only, and infections are just one way a person can be harmed by eating food. Do you have any data on the other ways people can harm their health by eating food. For example, food allergies, have you seen any data showing that the allergic reactions to foods are the same for gm foods, more severe, less sever, any data at all? I am not talking about being allergic to a protein previously not found in the natural version of the food item.

 

PL

You cannot prove a negative, but it is possible to prove a positive.

You are asking me to prove a negative. ie. That no adverse effect has ever happened. Cannot be proved.

The opposite - the positive can be proved. ie. There is no reason, if adverse effects have happened, why you cannot prove it.

All of which is another way of saying it is your job to show that some adverse reaction has occurred. It is not my job to prove it never has. All I can say is that, of all the dozens of reports on GM foods I have read, not one has mentioned, with scientifically credible evidence, a single case where harm has occurred to an eater, because their food was GM.

 

it isn't what i suggested. i also don't remember saying anything about toxicology data.
NCBI has said it.
NZFSA states the scientific studies and the royal societys submissions are missing.
the reference [26] from the wiki article on substantial equivelance is missing.
even tantalus has stated his concern over the lack of data.

i almost bought this line of reasoning until i remembered that drugs are reviewed all the time.
no problems of "commercial confidentiality" ever arises in those cases.
i am not in a position to call NCBI a liar.

 

Hi Chimpy, I am sorry I missed your previous question, I'd forgotten, my apologies.
It is my understanding that in recent years eukaryotic horizontal transfer of DNA and RNA has been observed as being much higher than peviously thought possible. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18591983

Analysis of DNA sequences suggests that horizontal gene transfer has also occurred within eukaryotes from the chloroplast and mitochondrial genomes to the nuclear genome. As stated in the endosymbiotic theory, chloroplasts and mitochondria probably originated as bacterial endosymbionts of a progenitor to the eukaryotic cell.[16 ~ Wiki
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horizontal_gene_transfer
The mitochondria in an eukaryotic cell represents a prokaryotic symbiosis suggesting that even eu and prokaryotic cells can exchange genetic information.
Because we know that DNA in part and whole is able to cross the gut-blood barrier, this combined with a piece of DNA or RNA designed to be easily incorperated into a genome represents a risk, albeit unquantified, that GM DNA or RNA, or fragments thereof could be taken up by either gut flora or the blood or any cell in contact with blood.
I don't know how much cooking is required to sufficiently degrade GM DNA. Certainly, animal foodstuffs were recalled after transgenic DNA was shown to survive processing and was found in the large and small intestines and also in gut flora. This information is widely available.

As I have explained before, the pharma companies will not test for these unless they are compelled to do so. But because the level of risk is unknown (due to lack of testing) they argue there is too little evidence to warrant further testing. It may help them more if they were to test, especially as more and more people are becoming aware of this aspect of gene transferance.

I see the constant refusal to do such testing, and keeping the few tests that are done under lock and key disturbing, but that's just me.

 

i can't say the tests aren't being done.
the fact that a few GM foods are now banned because of testing proves that.

the future of GM foods?
it seems it's going to be determined largely by the EU.

 

First of all, clearly if it happens at all in animals based on ingestion of food, it's a RARE occurance or it would have been spotted by now.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15761667

You've shown not one shred of evidence of horizontal gene transfer from eating GM food to the normal cells of a lab rat.

Finally, there is no cells in your body that, even if they could ingest and then incorporate a new DNA gene horizontally, would then produce huge numbers of new cells expressing the protein that gene encodes for.

Cell reproduction in our body simply doesn't work that way.

When that DOES occasionally happen we have a name for it, a TUMOR.

Which is why it isn't an issue even if it could occur to normal cells.

Arthur

 

Arthur, horizontal genetic transfer isn't about reproduction. That is through vertical genetic transfer.
The US government exposed rat intestines to a GM virus, and it was proven that "infection" took place as they call it..In this case they wanted infection to occur as a possible basis for gene therapy. This sideways transfer of genetic material is not always a bad thing. We can use it to our advantage.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8886846


5.4 Transgene transfer to human gut bacteria is confirmed
1. The only human feeding trial ever published confirmed that genetic material from Roundup Ready soy transferred into the gut bacteria in three of seven human volunteers.
2. The transferred portion of the transgene was stable inside the bacteria and appeared to produce herbicide tolerant protein.
3. There is no known way to treat such a condition, which may be long-term

Source:
http://www.responsibletechnology.org/gmo-dangers/65-health-risks/5notes

 

It IS about cell reproduction if you are saying there will be a negative impact from said transfer.

If there aren't large numbers of infected cells reproducing new infected cells then there will be no impact.

If there were large numbers of infected cells it would be observed in the Rats that they do the testing on.

It is not.

As to your source this was NOT infection from eating GM foods.

First, it was FETAL tissue (not same as adult tissue) and the fetal rat intestine was grafted subcutaneously to the test animals, so it wasn't be part of the normal digestive process.

So this study was not at all related to rats eating anything.

Arthur

 

NOPE

I already tracked that one down.

That's the infamous NewCastle study,

But their conclusion was totally different and they SPECIFICALLY say "we conclude that gene transfer DID NOT OCCUR during the feeding experiment"

It's funny how in this short thread how many times there have been references to this study, claiming it says something it does not.
Indeed, something it specifically says DID NOT OCCUR.

http://www2.ups.edu/faculty/amadlung/Plant_Phys_Bio332/Bio332_04_GMOdigestion.pdf

The other funny part is the line "there is no way to treat such a condition".

Really, we don't know how to kill e. coli?

Arthur

 

God Arthur, do you not know anything? Your continual squirming is pathetic. Here you are, a scientific study showing GM DNA in the gut flora of humans, let alone rats. Can you do nothing yourself? for someone allegedly interested in the subject you know very little about it.
I'm not writing a scientific paper for you. All the information is publicly available - all you have to do is type it in and press search. Read this study and you might even learn something. That is unless you only want to continue your trolling..

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http://www2.ups.edu/faculty/amadlung/Plant_Phys_Bio332/Bio332_04_GMOdigestion.pdf