I don’t vote Republican nor am I a Republican, so not sure what that means to be honest. I watched the whole video and I didn’t see anything factual either there or in the reference section. They tried to imply that because the plants absorb the Roundup used to kill the other weeds that this poisons those eating the food. They then talked about all the bad products (emphasizing the fact that they made Agent Orange several times) they make, again with the implication that this means they shouldn’t be patenting things that directly affect the food supply. Then they went on to some legislation passed to ensure Monsanto can poison the public at its whim without repercussion. It was a standard YouTube video using innuendo and implication to get someone to connect the dots they want to be connected in a way they want them connected, not dissimilar to the Loose Change videos (see what I did there?) and the like.
ISTM that this new Monsanto bashing is a digression twice removed from the original topic of conversation, which was first and foremost the need for oversight and regulation of biotechnology. The secondary digression is that the corporate domination of public policy in America is a widespread systemic problem that cannot be attributed to any one corporation or any group of them, although certainly some are worse than others. The tobacco companies, the oil and coal companies – and indeed Monsanto among the biotechs would be another example – basically, any company engaged in an industry where their interests require influence over public policy are all case studies in this malign and often secretive influence via lobbyists and dark money.
But in the interests of perspective, let’s remember that this is not about any one company or even any one industry, it’s a systemic problem.
That said, XT, you may be interested to know for what it’s worth that the file that Sourcewatch maintains on Monstanto is one of the largest and most disturbing that I’ve ever seen on any major corporation.
How can anyone watch the video I posted not see factual basis? The laws influenced by this powerful corporation are fucking public record for God’s sake. XT, the fact that you are claiming “a lack of facts” when presented with clear evidence of malfeasance really bugs me. And do you not see ANY irony in a company that did in fact produce Agent Orange and other toxic chemicals now being trusted with a major portion of our food supply? Really? You have no issue with that?
Its bizarre that you would link Monsanto with Agent Orange but not the US and UK governments and the academics that developed it for use in WWII. What could it possibly have to do with what Monsanto is doing today?
So what they did yesterday at the behest of world governments sucks, but what they do now is cool. Got it.
Monsanto still specializes in manufacturing poisons. Some of their best-known products are pairs of herbicides and specially developed crops that are immune to those pesticides. That seems like a natural development from Agent Orange.
But I don’t need to watch your link to know that history. Are there other facts worth summarizing in the video?
Which they indeed were. For example:
So your position boiled down to “we need better standards”. 
I asked for just one concrete suggestion for a new regulation. Apparently that’s too difficult for you.
Irony abounds. Nowhere have I made any such statement, rather presenting facts to indicate it promises to be a valuable tool in combatting preventable blindness and death on a large scale. And despite your play-acting about sources, this is not disputed by the vast majority of scientists and health care experts who’ve examined the issue. Your response: “I know of no reason that golden rice would be a problem”. Gee, there’s a ringing endorsement. An appropriate one would have been “As it could substantially alleviate a major health problem in the Third World, I hope it works out.”
Yeah, I know, golden rice is the third rail of anti-GMO advocacy. If you don’t feel safe actively opposing it, try to ignore or minimize it. Its success would cause too much trouble.
Anyone who doubts that it’s anti-GMOer opposition (including vandalism of test fields) that has held up the growing of golden rice is (to put it kindly) not paying attention. The consequences of this unwarranted delay have been dire.
Speaking of which, the idea that golden rice was a “publicity stunt” because it wasn’t marketed to First World countries is so breathtakingly ignorant that it hardly needs rebuttal. Is it too hard to comprehend that you go where the need is? And this:
I see. Only "some’ of the scientists were “probably” altruistic. The rest - bad, bad people. Gotcha.
Perhaps you were unaware that the backers of this project obtained guarantees that farmers could save golden rice seeds to replant without paying fees?
As to the mini-explosion of posts about Monsatan, this is anti-GMO 101, and a disengenuous distraction from both the technology and its safe/useful applications, as well as the fact that many much smaller firms have been and are developing biotech applications of food and medicines. I’m also reminded (in the hollering about POISONS!) of alties railing about chemotherapy as being the same thing as WWI poison gases, and no drugs are to be trusted because Big Pharma, and y’know, Vioxx.
Oh, and this:
Also out of the anti-GMOer playbook, only more bizarre and counterfactual than usual. Where have the Evil Corporations sued neighboring farmers for using heirloom seeds? The usual claim is that Monsatan sues farmers for having a few GMO plants on their land due to “contamination” from neighboring fields, which is bunkum - at least I’ve never seen evidence of a single lawsuit filed by any biotech firm for such a reason. The reality is instances like this, where a farmer deliberately planted a large crop worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, without paying license fees, and wound up on the wrong side of a court judgment. More on that here. Or take the case of an Indiana farmer who bought soybeans at a local grain elevator, deliberating using them to plant a Roundup-resistant crop and then trying to get out of paying license fees to the company. These enterprising types are hardly innocent victims of a giant predatory corporation.*
*Speaking of which, NPR, the New York Times and Scientific American (source of articles/posts linked above) will probably now be castigated by wolfpup as giant corporate predators who are not only GMO apologists but probably also climate change deniers. The NPR link also helps debunk the anti-GMO meme that farmers are only recently “forced” to buy seeds from large corporations, noting that it’s long been customary for them to purchase hybrid varieties every year, which are obtained from (shudder) large corporations.
And suppose that we do grant that Monsanto is evil: What does that have to do with the larger question? Monsanto is not the only company using modern genetic techniques.
Not to mention that Monsanto got swallowed up by Bayer, so now you’d have to single them out as the Destroyer of Worlds.
That takeover disappointed me; I enjoyed hearing about Monsatan. There’s no really satisfactory label for the parent company. The Bayereptilians? Doesn’t have the same ring to it. 
Boeing manufactured bombers, and manufactures airliners. It would be, umm, odd to infer from the fact that they made bombers that their airliners have bomb-bay doors to drop unsuspecting passengers to their deaths. :rolleyes:
Hey, no problem! Bayer was involved with making Zyklon B during WWII, you know, the “gas” in the “gas chambers” in the Nazi death camps.
Does that mean we should all boycott aspirin?
Wasn’t that on one of these lists?
They’re way ahead of you.
The Organic Consumers Association (heavily involved in anti-GMO advocacy, and which despite its name also represents companies selling organic products, who help fund it) has not only referenced Zyklon-B but mustard gas as well.
It’s puzzling that a high percentage of anti-GMO sentiment stems from fear and loathing of corporations, but the same people are triumphant over the fact that numerous corporations are padding their profits by promoting “non-GMO” products that offer no advantage to consumers over GMO alternatives - unless you think paying more is an advantage. Take Chipotle, which has tried to manipulate consumers in this way:
*"What troubles us is that Chipotle has embraced the fearmongering of some food, environmental and health activists who have turned “GMO” into a dirty word. By declaring its goal to eliminate GMO food from its kitchens, Chipotle may be pleasing its health-conscious guacamole fans, but it is missing an opportunity to educate them on the nuances of food science.
Genetic engineering, like the science behind vaccines and climate change, is easy to misunderstand. The biotechnology companies that pioneered this research have done a poor job of explaining advancements to the public over the 30 years since the first slow-ripening tomatoes were developed. (Perhaps they thought that Gregor Mendel had already paved that path with his pea plants a century earlier.) And aggressive Big Food companies, led by Monsanto, have provoked pushback — by watchdogs in the U.S. who say Big Food cares more about profit than public health and by European Union countries protective of their own agricultural interests.
Let’s keep the focus on the science. As we’ve stated on these pages in the past, ample research and decades of experience have shown that genetically modified crop technology is safe. The challenge, which we encourage Chipotle to address, is that “GMO” represents a vast range of applications. Packing them all together makes for easy marketing (Chipotle’s “G-M-Over It” line is cute) but it unfairly discounts the important — and safe — contributions that biotechnology is making to global food security.
One success story: “golden rice.” Through genetic engineering, this new type of rice contains beta-carotene, the source of vitamin A, which is severely lacking in the diets of millions in Africa and Asia. The scientists who developed it were just honored with a “Patents for Humanity” award by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office"*
Personally, I care more about Chipotle keeping dangerous pathogens out of their food than about their “non-GMO” pledge. (I haven’t eaten their food in a long time, though that stems less from fears about explosive diarrhea and vomiting than from concern about reconciling health consciousness with their fat and calorie-packed offerings).
Nice selective quoting. What you ridicule as “vague” was an introductory statement of principle that I later followed by specific examples of what was needed and why, followed later by three documents listing specific recommendations. You ignored all of it. I also tried many times to explain in a conciliatory manner why I believe regulatory frameworks are so important in the US. Your response is to imply that coherent thinking is “too difficult” for me.
For about the third time, my particular but not exclusive focus is on regulation, particularly with an eye to the future, and is fairly well delineated in the following chapters in this document [PDF]:
[ul]
[li]A Mandatory Pre-Market Approval Process at FDA is Necessary to Ensure Safety and Provide Consumer Confidence[/li][li]USDA Needs to Establish Science-Based Regulations Addressing the Real Potential Impacts of Growing GE Crops[/li][li]EPA Needs to use its Oversight of GE Crops and Conventional Pesticides to Prevent the Development of Resistant Pests and Weeds[/li][/ul]
If you prefer to just continue to pretend that I haven’t offered anything specific then I’m just going to stop wasting my time trying to engage with you.
You embarrassed yourself by citing as your source a discredited shill for the industry, someone I’ve known about for a long time due to his position on climate change denial, someone who was hauled up before a disciplinary committee on charges of scientific dishonesty (and partially exonerated on the grounds that he couldn’t be accused of being willfully deceptive because he clearly had no knowledge of the subject matter!). Someone who in the very first sentence made a declaration of alleged fact that was, at the very least, debatable and refuted by the academic study I cited. While I’m loathe to stooping to using your favorite broad-brush smear tactics, what does citing a scientific fraud like Lombard say about your own scientific bona fides?
I wasn’t aware that you required a “ringing endorsement”. Sorry, I don’t do ringing endorsements in factual discussions – you do. I won’t speculate on what prompts you to these incessant Pavlovian-response endorsements every time “GMO” is mentioned anywhere, but I’m limiting myself here to dispassionate facts.
What is puzzling is that I myself am not anti-GMO, nor have I ever promoted “non-GMO” or “organic”, yet for some reason you see fit to apply all those labels to anyone who takes exception to your absolutist positions and who seeks to provide some much-needed real-world perspective.
Full disclosure: I buy overpriced “organic” romaine lettuce leaves, but only because it’s very convenient that it’s pre-washed. I couldn’t care less about its alleged organic provenance or what that even means. I buy French baguettes from a specific bakery that flaunts the “non-GMO” trademark label, but only because it’s damn good bread. I have zero concerns about the current GMOs in the foods I eat. It would be nice if you could get rid of those stereotypes you have of anyone who dares to be critical of the biotech industry. There’s a very apt quote from Upton Sinclair that applies to climate change denial that may be pertinent here, too: “It’s hard to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on him not understanding it.”
I addressed that here, noting that bashing Monsanto was taking us further from the real issue.
What is extremely relevant, though, is the systemic problem of how readily commercial interests dominate the US legislative process to promote their own interests over those of the public, a fact well demonstrated in history and particularly endemic in controversial areas like tobacco, health care, climate change, and indeed directly in areas of food safety, too, and one can see stark differences in legislative approaches to those issues in Europe.
I’d also note one of the recommendations made some years ago in the Canadian Royal Commission study on prudent regulation of biotech:
“… that the Canadian Biotechnology Advisory Commission (CBAC) undertake a review of the problems related to the increasing domination of the public research agenda by private, commercial interests, and make recommendations for public policies that promote and protect fully independent research on the health and environmental risks of agricultural biotechnology.”
It doesn’t help matters that biotech is dominated by what is essentially an oligopoly of major operators, much like the oligopoly of oil, pharma, and health insurance, nor does it help that Monsanto, often considered the most infuential of them, is also the most aggressive and unethical.
Right, concerns about public safety and the environment are all a big joke. :rolleyes: Maybe instead of flippant ridicule you should read about Bayer’s neonicotinoid insecticides and their lethal effects on honey bees. Bayer is no saint either. And now the two of them will form a lobbying mega-powerhouse; indeed, Bayer and Monsanto already share many of the same influential and well-connected lobbyists in the US and Europe.
BTW, just to keep the record straight, while I’m here I want to be very clear that my second reply in post #134 was in no way an attack on the safety or merits of golden rice, which should be clear from previous context. My main beef with Lombard’s opening sentence is the assertion that anti-GMO activists were solely responsible for the long delays in the introduction of golden rice. That’s a highly debatable statement that may at best be a gross exaggeration of the disruptive influence that some protesters may have had on what was inherently a long development and deployment process (and at worst an outright lie, a tactic with which Bjorn Lomborg is intimately familiar), and the academic study I cited, summarized here and published in this peer-reviewed journal suggests that protesters were a minimal factor. It also suggests that the benefits of the new rice may indeed have been over-hyped. Obviously there’s legitimate scientific controversy here which of course Lomborg would never acknowledge.
Zyklon B was made by IG Farben.
I see nothing specific there whatsoever. FDA already is one of the agencies tasked with approving new GMO crops. What sort of additional “pre-approval” process do you have in mind? What “science-based regulations” should be implemented? How would this “oversight” to prevent resistant pests and weeds function, and why is it needed just for GMO crops (non-GMO crop growing is significant affected by insect and weed resistance?
You know, specifics. Name just one regulation you’d implement.
Oh, you mean the just-released two-year study that some media outlets are trumpeting as proof that neonicotinoid insecticides are killing off bees? The study that the Evil Bayer funded (along with Syngenta, another producer of these pesticides? How are you reconciling that research support with your thesis about the horror of corporations?
Incidentally (or not so incidentally) this study’s conclusions (which have been interpreted as contradicting previous research showing no significant harm) are being questioned as not nearly the slam-dunk some claim.
*"The European study went on for two years in three countries, spanning over 33 sites. A whooping 88 variables were measured (different health measures, different bees, etc). but only eight of them came out with a statistically significant difference. Three variables actually showed a significant beneficial correlation between neonicotinoid treatments and bee health, whereas five correlated with more harmful results. However, 18 results had to be dismissed altogether because the Varroa mite killed off many UK hives. But the study did not choose to track disease rates as variables.
This Arstechnica piece by a long time biology researcher gives a succinct coverage of these science news (which are reflected in all kinds of headlines in the media already): Study paints a confusing picture of how insecticides are affecting bees:
‘a team of independent researchers purportedly tied neonicotinoids to bee colony health. But a quick look at the underlying data shows that the situation is far more complex. And a second paper, with more robust results, supports the idea that these insecticides are merely one of a number of factors contributing to bees’ problems’
The researchers themselves indeed put their results in a rather peculiar way. They say their study supports the harmful effects of neonicotinoids, but in ‘a country-specific way’. As they found statistically significant beneficial effects mainly in Germany (though one was in the UK), they argue that this may be explained by other factors, because the bees were found to be in generally better health in Germany. For UK and Hungary, however, where bee pests were more of a problem, and the sources of nutrition were more limited, they say the five significant findings can be interpreted as an interaction-effect of neonicotinoids."*
Note also that “organic” pesticides such as rotenone and neem oil are toxic to bees (and can pose hazards to fish and mammals as well), so adopting them instead of neonics could be a big mistake.
Since it’s obvious that people resort to the shill gambit when facts and science are not on their side, I can’t get too worked up over wolfpup referring to me as a “Monsanto stockholder” or coming out with this:
If only the biotech industry would send me $hill Bucks for posting on Internet forums. But alas, the checks never arrive. I’ll just have to continue exposing idiocy for the sheer pleasure of it.
Continued insistence that the blocking of golden rice by anti-GMOers is the invention of one writer (ignoring multiple other sources I posted links to) is a similarly bankrupt ploy. The facts are easy to find, including the destruction of a golden rice test field in the Philippines and spreading of misinformation and fearmongering by anti-GMOers to put pressure on regulators and governments to delay the project.
*"Staunchly refusing to embrace Golden Rice as a cost-effective, complementary means to fight vitamin A deficiency, activist groups seek to block Golden Rice at the pass. Yet, the present methods of addressing Vitamin A deficiency are failing, evidenced by 1 million child deaths per year. It doesn’t take Solomonic judgement to note a gaping moral hole surrounding the arithmetic: As more than 1,000 children go blind each day (and half of those die within a year of losing sight), anti-GM advocates bleat about the detrimental effects from a bowl of transgenic rice.
Without activist opposition, would Golden Rice be nearer to the plate? “We have to develop Golden Rice varieties that approximate the agronomic traits and yield of conventional varieties. This takes considerable time and resources,” Ebron says. “Responding to anti-GM activism also takes a lot of our time, and that’s time which could productively be used in research.”
Patrick Moore, chairman of the Allow Golden Rice Now campaign, speaks in a far blunter manner. “Activists are responsible for the byzantine set of regulations making it very difficult to get through the approvals process. They are also responsible for the toxic political environment where the International Rice Research Institute is based.”
Moore was one of Greenpeace’s original leaders in the early 1970s, and served as president of Greenpeace Canada for nine years and director of Greenpeace International for seven years. He quit the organization in 1986. “If Golden Rice were a cure for Ebola, malaria or HIV-AIDS, it would have been approved years ago,” he says."*
https://www.agweb.com/article/golden-rice-separates-reason-radicalism-naa-chris-bennett/
Do try to brand Moore and all the others featured in (and authoring) those articles as biotech industry shills and climate change deniers, wolfpup. It ought to be entertaining.
Yes. During WWII Bayer was part of Farben. After WWII Farben was broken up and Bayer was one of the successor companies. By the same reasoning one should also boycott AGFA, BASF, and Sanofi.