<p>Lookingforward…here is a Dr. Oz quote “Medicine is a very religious experience. I have my religion and you have yours. It becomes difficult for us to agree on what works since much of it is in the eye of the beholder. Data is rarely clean. You find the arguments that support your data and it’s my fact against your fact”. </p>
<p>Medical studies are often paid by companies looking for a certain outcome. Do you think it is possible Monsanto might have the resources to obtain studies supporting the safety of GMO’s? Do you think it might be possible the popular Dr. Oz could be wrong? I am not going to attempt to remove all toxins from my body but I will try to minimize them.</p>
<p>OK, my ‘fact’ is “the Bt gene genetically engineered into maize cannot cause production of any toxin potentially injurious to humans in the mature kernel”.</p>
<p>I don’t believe only companies which pay for studies have an agenda to push. Most of what people believe is based on their life experiences and egoic state of consciousness. Everyone’s perception of reality is different. I recommend an excellent book which goes into detail about this called A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle.</p>
<p>"Commercial beekeepers have been disproportionately affected by hive losses. One of the few changes they’ve made to insect husbandry in recent years has been to supplement hives with corn syrup during winter months. Although that began prior to 2006, what did almost precisely coincide with the initial outbreaks of CCD was the emergence of widespread commercial treatment of corn seed with neonicotinoid insecticides.</p>
<p>Seed treatments questioned:</p>
<p>In North America and parts of Europe, many seeds now are coated with neonicotinoid insecticides before planting. As seeds germinate, the chemical enters the plant and circulates throughout its tissues, protecting vulnerable roots.</p>
<p>This systemic circulation of the pesticide bolsters concern by Lu’s team that imidacloprid can move into corn kernels. If it does, then the chemical could end up tainting corn syrup.</p>
<p>Today, imidacloprid or one of its neonicotinoid cousins coats most conventional and virtually all genetically modified corn seed, notes Charles Benbrook, chief scientist at the Organic Center in Troy, Ore."</p>
<p>I don’t want to make this more controversial than it already is. But there are scientific critiques of the Caen study, it’s methods and timelines. And probably every study, on both sides.</p>
<p>I always felt, in this era of plastics, microwave towers, increased use of manufactured products on the food source, increased availability of junk/packaged/processed foods, etc- and increases in dread diseases- that “eating like our grandparents” (my grandmother, at least,) was wiser than following popular trends or being swayed by corporations, etc. Problem is: someone IS out there, tinkering. Our air is contaminated, we know water is, who knows what’s in my yard soil, owing to lead paint. It goes on and is endless.</p>
<p>I think the only solution is a moderate attitude. Allowing for both sides. I can’t separate cob corn from my personal history of summers past. But I can be selective about how much. </p>
<p>Anyone remember the glycol crisis in Europe? There is no one perfect spot to live and eat.</p>
<p>I would be more worried about the Round-up resistant soy and other products. My husband told me that essentially all soy grown in the US is Roundup-resistant. That sucks.</p>
<p>Seralini is not a serious scientist, his studies never stand up to scrutiny, and most seriously he never suggests a mechanism for the claimed effects. What can be hypothesized to be present specifically in GM corn that could conceivably cause the effects he claims?</p>
<p>I think this is a pretty good report on the issue: </p>
<p>Here are some articles about unintended consequences in GMO crops. “Non-target” effects is the phrase they use. The Nature Institute has many informative articles about genetic engineering. </p>
<p>sorghum - I have to ask, how can assume that GMO corn is not harmful to you? That’s a lot of assuming. “cannot cause the production of any toxin”, really? I remember when corn intended for animal feed only got into the human supply (this was a decade or so ago) and several people had allergic reactions. That might not have been the Bt corn, but still, that’s a LOT of assuming.</p>
<p>The articles at the link show that altered plant DNA traveled from goats who ate it, into their kids who only received food from their mothers. That beekeepers feeding their hive with corn syrup saw a huge bee die off. That Bt corn has (negatively) effected other lepidoptera (butterflies and moths). That doesn’t scare you?</p>
<p>Those sources such as the Nature Institute that you link to are 100% partisan against GMO in any way, shape or form. The academic community is not generally biased like that, and scientists are not beholden to companies in the way that popular mythology presents (scientists all need grant money from big business to feed their families and will collectively lie their heads off blah blah). </p>
<p>If there was a way to produce a serious study proving any of these claimed effects, there are plenty of academic scientists (myself included) who would happily do it. If the results were real, a study would be done big enough and repeatable enough that everyone would be convinced (and there would be mechanisms proposed to back it up). Such a study would be published in a top journal and bring major credit to the authors.</p>
<p>When you see what specific gene Monsanto puts into corn, and what protein it codes for, you have to ask yourself how can this gene sequence cause the production of some unnamed mysteriously toxic or carcinogenic product in the mature seed? If the rabidly anti-GM people could think of any such mechanisms they’d be pretty swift to publicize them.</p>
<p>By the way Bt toxin itself is approved as a pesticide by US Organic Agriculture standards.</p>
<p>As I said, I am not happy with the way the business of agricultural biotechnology has developed. But for the limited question of is this bag of corn physically safe for you as a human to eat, I still say yes.</p>
<p>I am not sure that deciding whether eating corn is good or bad for the individual consumer is the only issue. Certainly we can eat corn and survive the experience, in that way the negative health effects can be insidious. It seems like it’s no big deal…and may or may not be. Could corn be another cigarette story? might be…It is worth our study and attention. We shouldn’t let any claims seem so far fetched that we dismiss the possibility that there are some issues there.
A larger problem is what the GMOs and other changes to our food supply might do to the world as a whole. Monsanto isn’t developing GMO corn just for the good of humanity and to feed the starving. They are doing to to insure profits. Their GMO is designed to better tolerate their pesticides so that more of their pesticides can be used…to me THAT is a problem. They have also been allowed to get patents on their GMOs, creating all sorts of problems, but it’s good for their bottom line.
I would encourage you to watch the documentary KING CORN (available on Netflix) Here is info on it…
[King</a> Corn | The Peabody-winning documentary from Mosaic Films Incorporated](<a href=“http://www.kingcorn.net/]King”>http://www.kingcorn.net/)
Of course, always watch/read while making your own conclusions, but this is eye opening.</p>
<p>sorghum - the Nature Institute studies used peer-reviewed literature. Here is an excerpt from the study about non-target effects on other lepidoptera:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>But I don’t expect that to necessarily convince anyone. Hopefully, it should keep some minds open. The most disturbing study is the one that shows that people will believe only what they want to believe. Maybe the methodology is flawed there…</p>
<p>Yes, the misinformed will believe only what they want to believe.</p>
<p>The Nature Institute lists some ‘non-target’ effects, none of which I can see are reports of toxicity in the product to be consumed. These websites are good at listing things that sound terrifying to the ignorant.</p>
<p>If something in a simple food, such as corn, is causing massive increases in cancer in rats, then name a chemical agent responsible and find it in the corn, it is that simple.</p>
Maybe the grass in my lawn is producing airborne toxins. I don’t really know, do I? But I assume that it isn’t, because I can’t spend my whole life worrying about such things. I have no reason to believe that products made from GE crops are dangerous to my health, and I do believe that anyone who discovered a problem would publish. After Seralini published his results, I read his paper and did not find anything worrisome. That’s all I can do.</p>
<p>Anyway, don’t assume non-GMO is sure to be safe. In conventional breeding, suppose you have a new pest or disease and you need to breed in resistance. You find some wild relative that has resistance to that emergent strain of disease and cross it in to the current modern variety of say corn or tomato. Then you cross a few more times to get rid of the wild type background while keeping the resistance gene. The upshot is you still retain a LOT of other unknown genes from the plant that carried the resistance. And a lot of those wild types are not edible. As GE is so much more precise, you are only bringing in exactly the gene or genes that you want.</p>
<p>I don’t eat enough corn to be particularly concerned about how it is grown, but there are two forms of corn that now appear to be so clearly dangerous to your health that we all can probably agree to avoid them as much as possible:</p>
<p>Corn oil has been pretty clearly linked to an unfavorable ratio of fatty acid types in terms of coronary artery disease and has been linked to increased risk of certain types of cancers. The partially hydrogenated transfat versions of corn oil are among the most dangerous food products you can eat. The non-trans fat versions are bad enough that I would not eat them at all and try to limit prepared foods with them.</p>
<p>High fructose corn syrup has been shown to be every bit as dangerous your health as sugar and, to the extent that it’s much cheaper and more ubiqitous, a clear health threat. Sugar and high fructose corn syrup are obvious contributors to obesity just from a caloric standpoint, but more insidious in the way that they are metabolized by the liver. There is a strong hypothesis that over consumption of sugar or high fructose corn syrup is a direct cause of insulin resistance – the link between all of the components of metabolic syndrome (obesity, type 2 diabetes, cornonary artery disease, etc). I avoid sugar and high fructose corn syrup as much as possible.</p>
<p>Just sayin’. Plus there are loads of articles on how weeds and bugs are evolving to be resistant to all our chemicals. Meh, fertilizer sure helps us feed the planet. So do herbicides and pesticides. I wish I believed the organic stuff at the market was any better for us than the non. My own garden is contaminated b/c DH could care less about spewing grub killer and roundup all over the place. /shrug. We do still live longer on average than 100 years ago; that’s hygiene, antibiotics, surgery = science. However, I just don’t trust Monsanto. Our gov’t seems to though. Not so much other nations’.</p>