I stated that I could not find a direct link for the quote, and that a Google search only turned it up on anti-GMO websites.
The same quote does appear at the start of one of the chapters in the Royal Soc. of Canada panel recommendations. As with the websites I cited, there is no direct reference or attribution for the quote. Was Nature Biotechnology (or one of its contributors) even referring specifically to genetically modified crops, or to biotechnology in general? Who knows?
Given that Nature Biotechnology has in the 15 years since that report appeared gone on record in support of GM crop technology (as I demonstrated in a previous post), citing that one otherwise unattributed quote to indicate the journal’s position as being GMO-suspicious/hesitant is not quite accurate.
As to the quote appearing on anti-GMO websites without further explanation - well, that’s another classic tactic of the woo-driven. Pick out a damning-sounding quote from someone who can be held up as an Authority, and post the bejesus out of it without further explanation.
Example: “The only safe vaccine is one that is never given.” (attributed to James Shannon, former director of the NIH). You will find that one plastered over numerous antivaccine websites. As others have noticed, the context in which the statement was supposedly made is never provided. Logically, one can surmise that an NIH director might have been queried about vaccine safety and responded that since no medical intervention is wholly without risk, the only completely safe vaccine is no vaccine at all.
And yet the quote is thrown out there to serve an agenda of which no NIH director has ever approved.
*by the way, this article suggests that most Canadians are not stirred up about claimed GMO food hazards, and that the Canadian government has approved dozens of GM crop varieties.
Speaking of the situation in Canada, here’s Health Canada’s position on GM food safety:
*"Is there any scientific evidence to suggest that genetically modified foods are less safe that those foods produced using conventional techniques?
After twelve years of reviewing the safety of novel foods, Health Canada is not aware of any published scientific evidence demonstrating that novel foods are any less safe than traditional foods. The regulatory framework put in place by the federal government ensures that new and modified foods can be safely introduced into the Canadian diet."*
So then why even make the statement? There is only one reason: to attempt to attach some sort of negative insinuations to GMO*. If wolfpup agrees that there is no known problems with GMO then going on about discreditable companies does not clarify the issue.
(* - I suppose the other reason would be to “internet argue”: to continue to bring up unrelated facts and opinions in an attempt to argue that one is not completely wrong.)
In what way is “Editors - Nature Biotechnology (October 2000)” not a direct reference or attribution? :rolleyes:
And speaking of “deception”, a word that you use a lot, the quote doesn’t merely “appear at the start of one of the chapters”, it is the only such headline quote in the entire paper, and it appears at the very beginning, at the start of Chapter 1, so as I said, it’s intended as the theme for the entire document.
First, the quote is attributed, so you’re wrong about that. Second, “supporting GM crop technolgy” is orthogonal to the issue of regulation and prudent evidence-based requirements for safety. I support GM crop technology, too. So you’re wrong about that, too. Third, the journal appears neither “suspicious” nor “hesitant” but simply scientifically conservative and prudent, as science should be. As evidenced by an entire chapter (Chapter 8) of the cited RSC report on the subject of precautionary principles. (Except, of course, big-money industrial “science”, which doesn’t give a crap about “precautionary” anything. They deny climate change, too.) So I guess you strike out with three tries and three wrongs.
Yes. **The answer to the question “Has harm been proven?” is “No”.
The answer to the question “Is there a significant risk of harm in the future?” is “There’s no evidence for any such risk, but the future development of the technology is still so open-ended that we can’t say for sure at present.”**
As part of the general discussion of relative and potential risks of GMOs, and the context for assessing such risks. What’s wrong with that?
Recall that the basic one-sentence answers to the above questions that I repeated for Trinopus were established within the first few posts in this thread. The contextual issues of how we can assess the reliability of those answers, and related questions of trustworthiness and ulterior motives of different sources, were raised by Stranger On A Train as early as post #2.
This whole thread from its inception has been about how to evaluate scientific knowledge on GMOs as well as what that scientific knowledge tells us about the simple question asked in the OP.
So it’s a rather sleazy tactic to accuse wolfpup of “making the statement” as though it was a completely irrelevant side-issue whose introduction could have “only one reason”, namely dishonest insinuation. Bullshit: the discussion of the reliability of agribusiness in evaluating science has been ongoing throughout the thread, and it wasn’t wolfpup who brought it up.
C’mon, you know very well what that means. Show us the article or editorial it comes from. If you can’t find it or know what its context and significance are, maybe you shouldn’t be citing it.
Poison that well, baby. Pretend all of agricultural biotech science is “industrial”-tainted. That really helps your cause. :dubious:
I would have to pay to see the entire editorial from 2000.
Nowhere in your excerpts do I see any mention of GM foods or agricultural applications. “Biotechnology” is a very broad term.
*"Biotechnology is the use of living systems and organisms to develop or make products, or “any technological application that uses biological systems, living organisms or derivatives thereof, to make or modify products or processes for specific use” (UN Convention on Biological Diversity, Art. 2).[1] Depending on the tools and applications, it often overlaps with the (related) fields of bioengineering, biomedical engineering, biomanufacturing, etc…
The wide concept of “biotech” or “biotechnology” encompasses a wide range of procedures for modifying living organisms according to human purposes, going back to domestication of animals, cultivation of plants, and “improvements” to these through breeding programs that employ artificial selection and hybridization. Modern usage also includes genetic engineering as well as cell and tissue culture technologies. The American Chemical Society defines biotechnology as the application of biological organisms, systems, or processes by various industries to learning about the science of life and the improvement of the value of materials and organisms such as pharmaceuticals, crops, and livestock.[3] As per European Federation of Biotechnology, Biotechnology is the integration of natural science and organisms, cells, parts thereof, and molecular analogues for products and services.[4] Biotechnology also writes on the pure biological sciences (animal cell culture, biochemistry, cell biology, embryology, genetics, microbiology, and molecular biology). In many instances, it is also dependent on knowledge and methods from outside the sphere of biology including:
bioinformatics, a new brand of computer science
bioprocess engineering
biorobotics
chemical engineering"*
Attempting to extrapolate from the editorial excerpts you provided to how Nature Biotechnology feels about genetically modified food products seems like a risky endeavor.*
*especially as I’ve demonstrated that the journal’s editorial board sees value in these products and thinks that introduction of specific items with particular consumer value will help overcome unjustified fears.
:rolleyes: Nobody has been disputing at all that Nature Biotechnology editors “see value” in biotechnology products and espouse “overcoming unjustified fears” about them.
So patting yourself on the back for having “demonstrated” those blindingly obvious facts is a bit of an oversell.
I don’t believe any genetically modified foods currently on the market has been found to be harmful to eat. But there’s a vast potential, for both good and ill, in modern generic engineering. And i think foods created by slamming foreign genes into crops should be tested for safety before they are released. And i don’t think the US has adequate rules around that. Foods created by irradiating crops to randomly alter their genome should be tested for safety, too. I have much less concern for foods created by crossbreeding related individuals. We have a great deal of experience with that and understand the risks and benefits pretty well.
By the way, i am looking forward to the introduction of Arctic apples on the market. They are genetically engineered to not go brown. I believe they will be the first genetically engineered foods in the US to directly benefit the consumer, rather than the farmer. (Lower prices from more efficient production may be an indirect benefit to the consumer. That’s different than “better apples”)
That being said, there are lots of example of harm caused by genetically engineered crops. People living near farms exposed to roundup (especially in South America), cows on bgh getting more frequent udder infections, possible damage to monarch butterflies from BT corn pollen, roundup resistant weeds near fields of roundup resistant crops,…
I certainly don’t want GMO foods outlawed, quite the contrary, i hope we will reap huge benefits from it. But i do wish we had a stronger regulatory environment around testing it.
[QUOTE=puzzlegal]
That being said, there are lots of example of harm caused by genetically engineered crops. People living near farms exposed to roundup (especially in South America), cows on bgh getting more frequent udder infections, possible damage to monarch butterflies from BT corn pollen, roundup resistant weeds near fields of roundup resistant crops,…
[/QUOTE]
Expanded use of Roundup on “Roundup-ready” GM crops has been cited in claims that such crops increase exposure to herbicides.
What actually has happened is that we’ve seen a marked drop in the use of more toxic and less environmentally-friendly herbicides in favor of Roundup, which while not totally innocuous has a much better safety profile both for users and the environment.* Another side of the coin is that over-reliance on Roundup-ready crops seems to have sped up what inevitably happens whenever a pesticide is overused - resistance develops (a phenomenon we have seen since long before GM crops were ever introduced). As non-toxic/less toxic pesticides run into resistance problems, crops are being engineered to resist more toxic chemicals (like 2,4-D) which in turn will face increased resistance from weeds. In modern agriculture (going back many decades) it’s been a constant battle to stay ahead of weeds and use the least toxic alternatives to control them**, while encouraging sound crop management and using protocols to minimize resistance development.
As for rbGH, this article notes that some studies suggest extra milk production in such cows may make them more susceptible to udder infection; one study however found rbGH protective against mastitis in an experimental model.
*I resist using Roundup or any herbicide unless absolutely necessary (i.e. on poison ivy). I have also fought a small online campaign to convince fellow gardeners not to use a popular chemical application (Preen) to prevent weed germination, finding it impossible to justify using a pre-emergent herbicide in a non-farm situation where my living does not depend on it.
**I have a vintage gardening book from WWII which gives advice to homeowners establishing Victory gardens to support the war effort (using your own produce meant more available for troops abroad). It is sobering and even scary to read about the chemicals recommended in the 1940s to control pests (other than weeds). Paris green and other forms of arsenic were highly praised. :eek:
The good old days were not as golden as you might think.
Lots of old orchards and vineyards are now considered toxic contaminated sites due to the arsenic and other chemicals routinely used on them. Yeah, modern anti-pest chemicals are better than the older ones.
Of course not, because harm has been caused, proven, and understood for centuries before; we know how combustion/ignition/etc works and the level of maturity/responsibility required to control it or use it safely. We’ve known what fire is and how to use it pretty much since we’ve been human… it’s one of the things we understand best. GMOs are much different in terms of our track record and study of harm they may or may not cause.
So? Is there anything about the quoted text that you’re claiming is somehow inapplicable to “GM foods or agricultural applications”, as well as to other aspects of biotechnology?
I’m glad you finally recognize that. It sure took you long enough.
This whole thread has been a slow-motion derail caused by your inexplicable inability to recognize that other posters are agreeing with you about the basic facts of GMO science as currently known, and your continued insistence on treating reasonable remarks about science as though they’re indistinguishable from irresponsible crackpottery.
Your militant but foggy “scienthusiasm”, in which you’re only concerned with setting up and lambasting your own choice of obviously idiotic anti-science adversaries for their egregious errors, rather than engaging with what other posters are actually talking about, has been propagating your ignorance in this thread rather than fighting it.
I thought we might see a grudging mea culpa from posters who hyped an excerpt from an editorial claimed to support warnings about GM foods - when it turns out that the editorial doesn’t even mention them.
In other words, you don’t know of anything in the quoted text that is somehow inapplicable to GM foods or agricultural applications, as well as to other aspects of biotechnology.
Thought not.
Also, nobody in this thread ever claimed that this cited text did relate specifically or exclusively to GM foods or GMO agriculture, as opposed to biotechnology in general. So your complaint is invalid on that score too.
[QUOTE=Jackmannii]
Meantime, some foodies are sounding warnings […]
[/quote]
As usual, you’re changing the subject to what “some” other source not referenced by any poster here is saying about something else, to distract from the fact that you don’t actually have any valid criticisms of what posters in this thread are saying about the topics under discussion.
