Genetically Modified Organisms

What do you mean by "work"? They could acomplish the goal i.e. "work" by some defintions and still be dangerous. They could be completely safe and just not acomplish the intended goal, if they had some payoff (partially complish the goal or something unexpected) would this count as "work"? What if they acomplish the goal and are safe for people but have some other negative impact?

I don't think anyone here is advocating that of course again I'm not sure what you mean by a "free ride". There are laws and regulations in place that the companies that market these products have to abide by. If they are well thought out I suspect that many would find additional regulations acceptable. Then there is the impact of letting the market decide as you seem to be in favor of in one of your posts above. Was this poorly worded or is it a straw man?

I'm not sure how good you think Kodiac thinks they are. Certainly some have been abject failures others have considerable promise. Based on various conditions it's not unexpected that farmers would try some of them out and depending on their experiance and market situations either continue with them or not. That market consideration can be a big one as well especially when regulations in some countries discourage them. If said countries are one of your main markets even a significantly better crop yield may not be worth it.

??? You are asking for the impossible. "fully tested" given any reasonable defintion of the term is beyond our capability at present and likely to be so for the forseeable future. There are foods that have been in use for decades, centuries, and even millenia that turn out, based on new research to have adverse health effects. Everything that I know of has some adverse health effects by the way, even breathing air to rich in oxygen is not good for you.

My experiance is that at best most people have a very superficial understanding of statistics. For instance if you hear or read in the media that the margin of error of a particular poll is 3% what exactly does that mean?

Based on what you said above that seems unlikely but then again if you held "natural foods" to the same criteria you wouldn't be statisfied with them either.

Has anyone asked you to do so? By all means study the issue and look at it from both sides. I think I have at least suggested above that if you are really concerned about health and they are physically and financially available organic foods are the way to go. Even there though some care should be taken and in some cases they simply may not be worth the premium or they may even have issues of their own. Also realise that others may wish to follow a different path especially if the availability equation is different for them.

You could indeed state it just as easily but if you mean the Forbes site the evidence is strongly the other way. For instance the "organic" site simly stated that some farmers were turning away from GMO foods and they thought their animals were doing better. That's not even an indication of anything approaching a statistical survey. Indeed it is an incredibly flawed procedure if you want to actually prove anything. The Forbes site on the other hand (while the wording does suggest some bias) sites comprehensive lists of scientific studies and sumarises those studies so one can follow up on them if desired. Furthermore an organization such as Forbes doesn't have any obvious connection or gain from taking a side in this. The same cannot be said for the "organic" site where the issue is part of their funamental belief system.

Indeed "big buisness" has tried to spin scientific issues in the past it has also come back to haunt them on a number of occasions. That doesn't mean some might not try it again. But based on the Forbes article that doesn't seem to be the case. Note that there were independent studies that came up with the same results of most if not all the other studies. The article even mentioned that there were a few studies which came up with contrary results although the only one specfically mentioned had been withdrawn. Now look at what the "organic" site's article states. Some farmers who switched from GMO foods to others thought their animals were doing better. Let's look at the implications of this. Say for example 1,000,000 farmers were using GMO foods and 1,000 weren't satisfied and changed. That's perfectly consistent with the above. If they interviewed 100 of them and two or more said their animals were doing better it's still perfectly consistent but rather misleading isn't it? Then consider if a farmer isn't happy with how well his animals are doing with a particular type of food is he likely to switch to a cheaper/lower grade of food? Of course not he's going to choose a higher quality food and likely will see some benefit of the above. In this case the original food could be GMO or not as could the food that was changed to. However the article didn't mention that they had looked at any cases other than GMO to non GMO food. Did they lie? Very probably not but they certianly look like they are making no attempt at all to be balanced or scientific.

 

Just sticking with my own experience- Maybe it is placibo effect, but feel a lot better since eliminating wheat. It was extremely difficult to eliminate the wheat. When discussing friends health issues- heartburn/ diarreah/ nausea/ low energy/ hair /skin etc etc- none of them could maintain the diet. It was too difficult. It is in a lot of what we consume. Campbells chicken broth, tomato soup, most soy sauces, most breakfast cereals, beer (that hurt), most deserts, etc etc...Why.
Makes sense that they would want to create foods that cause us to crave them. Suspect they'd like to create foods that cause addiction. Look around at the mindless eating habits. Robots fueling up on crap food, only just to eliminate and start the process all over again. Look at what folks are buying at Walmart checkout, look at the 400 pounder stuffed into a McDonalds booth cramming another big mac down and wonder why. They aren't hungry.

So is this about profit over health.

 

To us in the west it's often about profit vs health. Of course gluten in wheat isn't something added by GMO's it's a naturally occurring component of all wheat (and grasses). We have the choice to eliminate wheat or red meats or GMO foods from our diets.

The primary carbohydrate in the western diet is wheat or related grains, but money gives us the freedom to make different choices. The problem is that many of the poor around the world who need simple carbohydrates to fend off starvation, live in rice growing regions. Millions of them die every year simply because of lack of Vitamin A, because white rice doesn't provide that essential nutrient. They don't have the money or land to supplement their diets to include vegetables rich in Vitamin A. If you have an acre of rice and you replace half of it with vegetables, then you have just eliminated a significant portion of your caloric intake for the year. They aren't going to starve their children to satisfy the subjective judgment of somebody with ten or a hundred times their income on the other side of the planet.

At the same time the anti-GMO movement has so poisoned the water with it's strident anti-Golden Rice rhetoric that entire governments have backed away from this safe food that has been tested to death. They've condemned millions of children to blindness and death.

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-43767/Worlds-GM-babies-born.html



Well ummm humans are just another "organism" right?.....we have been doing it with other organisms forever.

 

Ha...I see where your going with that VG-
"Geneticists fear that one day this method could be used to create new races of humans with extra, desired characteristics such as strength or high intelligence."