Note: This post follows Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence about Don Huber’s alleged letter to the USDA that claims a never before seen “micro fungus” is endangering all of agriculture.
While claims about “micro-fungi” are too extraordinary to even consider until extraordinary proof is provided (and preferably replicated by another lab and peer reviewed), Don Huber’s claims that Roundup (specifically the active ingredient glyphosate) weakens crops by binding minerals in the soil seems to have at least some merit, at least enough to be taken seriously and examined further.
Over the years since Roundup Ready (RR) crops have been released, independent researchers have conducted many studies to determine whether there is a specific problem with some crop varieties with the RR gene, with all crops with the RR gene, or with glyphosate itself. Overall, the research shows that there may be some concern about glyphosate reducing availability of some minerals when the soil is deficient in those minerals. The research hasn’t found a problem with the RR gene itself.
It is important to note that the stack of peer reviewed papers indicating glyphosate to be a problem with disease or yield is much smaller than the stack indicating there is no problem. We must look at the entire body of evidence, not just cherry pick one or a few papers, in order to get a clear understanding of what’s really happening. Happily, extension experts from multiple universities have summarized the research for us, but if you want to look for yourself, PubMed is a great place to start.
Claims of interactions between glyphosate and minerals
In February of 2010, Dr. Huber appeared in an article by Martha Ostendorf titled Are We Shooting Ourselves In The Foot With A Silver Bullet? in No-Till Magazine along with Bob Streit, an agronomy consultant in Iowa. That article is no longer available from the No-Till Farmer website, but thankfully a Biofortified reader found another source (linked from the article title). Another article written by Huber at about the same time is Ag chemical and crop nutrient interactions. In these document, a lot of claims are made that aren’t consistent with the majority of peer reviewed research on the subject.
Since 2010, Dr. Huber has continued publicly claiming that glyphosate binds up minerals in the soil, making the minerals unavailable to crops and increasing susceptibility to disease (specifically fungal disease), thus decreasing yields. He spoke to the Innovative Farmers Association of Ontario in March 2010, one of many talks he’s given on this topic. In February 2011, he gave a talk in Des Moines at a seminar organized by the same Bob Streit and Amie Brandy. Dr. Huber has published some peer reviewed studies to back up his claims as well.
Dr. Huber is not the only scientist that has found interactions between glyphosate and minerals. Back in 2007, Barney Gordon published some research in an industry newsletter indicating that glyphosate treated soybeans may require manganese fertilizer for optimal yields: Manganese Nutrition of Glyphosate-Resistant and Conventional Soybeans. Of course, this research was used inappropriately as “evidence” that genetic engineering reduces yields, but that’s another story.
Dr. Gordon and Dr. Huber’s work has been used eagerly by fertilizer companies and organizations that promote fertilizers to encourage farmers to apply minerals to their crops. For example, see Glyphosate and Micronutrients by Jim Halbeisen of Growers Mineral Solutions and Missing Micro Nutrients by Larry Reichenberger of ProfitPro (who sells liquid fertilizer).
Dr. Huber has published directly in fertilizer promotion materials, such as the Fluid Journal (sponsored by the Fluid Fertilizer Foundation): What About Glyphosate-Induced Manganese Deficiency? Dr. Gordon’s Manganese Nutrition of Glyphosate-Resistant and Conventional Soybeans was published in Better Crops which is run by the International Plant Nutrition Institute which encourages use of a variety of fertilizers.
Response from extension
Understandably, farmers have been actively pursuing more information from extension agents as soon as they hear about a possible decrease in yields with glyphosate use. University extension has responded with multiple documents and presentations to help guide farmers using known research and by conducting additional research. Extension agents have a unique ability to bring research directly to farmers and other people near the university and can quickly conduct field tests to help farmers make science-based decisions.
In February of 2010, Iowa State University Extension produced a great overview of the research that includes analysis of some papers of which Dr. Huber was a co-author: Glyphosate-Manganese Interactions in Roundup Ready Soybean by Bob Hartzler, Extension Weed Specialist and Professor of Agronomy. He concludes that manganese uptake varies depending on which soybean variety is being used, not on whether or not the RR gene is present. He also concludes that while it is known that glyphosate will bind to soluble manganese, this is only a problem in manganese deficient soils.
In November of 2010, Bob Hartzler released Glyphosate Interactions with Micronutrients and Plant Disease, with the conclusion:
Due to the complexity of the processes that occur within the root zone, it is impossible to completely rule out negative effects of glyphosate on mineral nutrition or disease development in GR crops. However, results from field research and our widespread experience with glyphosate on GR crops for over a decade do not indicate widespread negative impacts of glyphosate on these factors.
In April of 2010, University of Minnesota Extension put out a short commentary that also discussed Dr. Huber’s claims: Roundup and Manganese for Minnesota Soybeans. Extension agent George Rehm conducted experiments in Minnesota and found that additional manganese was not needed due to adequate manganese in Minnesota soils. The April commentary was actually a followup to a post about manganese from January of 2010, Magnesium In Minnesota, that attracted some critical commentary from none other than Bob Streit.
In January of 2011, Ohio State University Extension released a presentation (Flash needed) by Robert Mullen, extension specialist and associate professor, summarizing their work on this subject: Manganese / Glyphosate antagonism? Their research shows that applying manganese to soy does increase the concentration of manganese in plant tissues, but did not find that glyphosate caused decreases in yield or manganese. Adding manganese can cause yield increase or yield decrease depending on environment, specially soil type. They did find that soil type and pH causes significant differences in manganese uptake.
In February of 2011, Dr. Huber’s colleagues at Purdue University Extension put out a paper titled Glyphosate’s Impact on Field Crop Production and Disease Development that seems to be in direct response to the flurry of blog posts and “news” articles about Roundup that were spurred by Dr. Huber’s recent letter. While they don’t mention Dr. Huber directly, they do cite and express concern about articles that are credulous about Dr. Huber’s claims regarding glyphosate and plant and animal disease. They conclude:
Overall, the claims that glyphosate is having a widespread effect on plant health are largely unsubstantiated. To date, there is limited scientific research data that suggest that plant diseases have increased in GM crops due to the use of glyphosate. Most importantly, the impact of these interactions on yield has not been demonstrated. Therefore, we maintain our recommendations of judicious glyphosate use for weed control. We encourage crop producers, agribusiness personnel, and the general public to speak with University Extension personnel before making changes in crop production practices that are based on sensationalist claims instead of facts.
This isn’t the first time that Dr. Huber’s colleages have attempted to do damage control in response to “greatly exaggerated” reports by Dr. Huber about minerals and glyphosate. In April of 2010 Dr. Huber’s colleagues at Purdue University Extension released Glyphosate – Manganese Interactions and Impacts on Crop Production: The Controversy, referring interested persons to Iowa State University Extension. They state that high pH, high organic matter soils cause manganese to be less available to the crop whether or not glyphosate is present.
Update: Extension agents are still working to correct what they see as misinformation spread by Dr. Huber. Anne Dorrance, expert in soybean pathology and extension agent at Ohio State has a 14 March 2011 article in Ag Professional: Glyphosate Effects on Soybean Diseases. She directly assesses the claims that glyphosate use has increased incidence of disease, backed up with literature and her personal experience.
Have you seen any other extension or other articles by professional agronomists on this topic? Let us know and I’ll include them here.
Consider the data, not the source
I have read some claims that university researchers can not be trusted because many universities accept some grants from agricultural companies. Specifically, some bloggers have claimed that the Purdue extension agents’ scientific integrity is compromised, which is something that I think needs to be addressed, especially when it is clear that fertilizer companies and foundations are so eager to use Dr. Huber’s research. Potential conflicts of interest go every which way.
Purdue, like Iowa State and every other university, has strict standards of scientific and professional ethics. In addition, the amount of research funding granted by companies is small compared to funding from other sources. For example, at Iowa State, publicly available detailed reports of funding show that the research being conducted with corporate funding are far from the majority of funding and that most grants are extremely specific in scope. While there are isolated examples of inappropriate conduct of public universities regarding private companies or company interests, that is no reason to denounce every employee at every public university.
Instead of smearing the names of extension employees and researchers, we should examine the veracity of their work. We need to consider the data available. The identity of the source needs to be known in order to determine if a person has relevant expertise. We can look at the source to get a feeling for how much skepticism we need to apply. Go too far beyond that, and we get dangerously close to ad homs.
Biofortified 
Regarding the 1967 Vicia faba paper where they were using mutagens.
I would expect that papers using normal breeding would be more useful as a comparison.
In the Google Scholar search I recommended, the 2nd paper in the list (a USDA paper) gives breeding numbers.
“Translocations and modifications of chromosomes in triticale × wheat hybrids”
“Summary. Several generations of four triticale • wheat populations were cytologically analyzed on a plant-byplant
basis using C-banding. Among 785 karyotyped plants, 195 wheat/rye and 64 rye/rye translocated chromosomes were found, as well as 15 rye chromosomes that were modified by deletion or amplification of telomeric heterochromatin. Most of the translocations involved complete chromosome arms; only a few involved smaller segments of chromosomes. Out of 39 identified wheat/rye translocations, 10 occurred between homologous and 29 between non-homologous chromosomes, five involved A-genome chromosomes, six B-genome chromosomes and the remaining 28 involved D-genome chromosomes. The study indicated that wheat/rye translocations can be produced in sufficient numbers to allow the use of this method for the introduction of alien variation into
wheat research programs. Changes in the C-banding technique used are discussed in detail.”
I have the full paper and can honor a limited number of requests (for educational purposes).
From the experimental section.
Editor’s note – Email address removed, the editors can contact Dr. Kuska on your behalf if you use the Biofortified Comment form.
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Why? The paper gives a large number of within species rather than cross species crosses and shows that under mutagenic pressure there is a very low incidence of translocation – the linked triticale x wheat paper comments “that a large number of rye/rye and wheat/rye translocated chromosomes
were formed” – suggesting that this isn’t usual at all – further in the paper it discusses that the presence of many univalents (which isn’t the situation in cotton, which is what we were discussing initially) vastly increases the propensity for chromosome breakage and translocation – it appears to do so on a level more comparible with severe x-ray or neutron bombardment of the plants discussed in the swedish paper – so not a suitable model for the sort of within species crosses that occur in breeding cotton or in backcrossing a trait from one line of cotton into another.
To return to the subject at hand I had mentioned that I’d talk with a cotton breeder in our organization to see what the dealio was with Bollgard II cotton – he furnished me with a response
I can’t go into the details on BGII as I’m not sure what is and what isn’t business confidential on that piece (blech, right?) but to paraphrase what was said – BGII can either be crossed into a BGI line, or onto the conventional parent in exactly the same manner – the genes will segregate in a mendelian fashion as they have no linkage whatsoever.
Introgressing traits in cotton is as easy as I have portrayed – straight from the horses mouth – from the people who do this day in day out in Indian production cotton lines (because bizarrely the first person in the organization who popped up in my search for cotton breeders doing trait integration was in India, and not in Texas) – 3 generations with marker assisted breeding. That my friends, is awesomeness – and why people who focus on all the time and effort spent doing transgenics need to keep in mind that breeders do spectacular stuff day in and day out and are largely ignored because for some reason there is a view out there that breeding is simple stuff.
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In a 2002 review “Molecular Markers in Plant Breeding – 1: Concepts and Characterization” the following is stated (when markers are not used):
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The above Murray information is utilized in an excellent educational 2000 paper
(Please especially look at the slides.)
They acknowledge the classical Mendel model:
H.Kuska comment. My original comment about the genetics that Ewan had presented was:
The above paper is the type of explanation that I would expect to see in an advanced graduate textbook on breeding.
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Henry:
Have you seen the Murray et al. paper from 1988? Do you have a copy? I ask because the sentence in the Farooq and Azam review (Molecular Markers in Plant Breeding-I) that cites it may be somewhat misleading and rather than speculate I’d like to have a look at Murry et al.
For others who might be curious, the Farooq and Azam paper is available at:
Click to access Molecular+Markers+in+Plant+Breeding-I+Concepts+and+Characterization.pdf
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Back to mineral uptake and glyphosate effects.” Please see another USDA contribution reviewed published scientific paper:
Title: NUTRIENT ACCUMULATION AND PHOTOSYNTHESIS IN GLYPHOSATE-RESISTANT SOYBEANS IS REDUCED UNDER GLYPHOSATE USE.”
Authors: Zobiole, Luiz Henrique Saes; Silverio de Oliveira, Rubem, Jr.; Kremer, Robert John; Muniz, Antonio Saraiva; de Oliveira, Adilson, Jr.
Published in: Journal of Plant Nutrition (2010), 33(12), pages 1860-1873.
Abstract; “Global production of glyphosate-resistant (GR) soybean [Glycine max (L.) Merr.] continues to increase annually; however, there are no particular specific fertilizer recommendations for the transgenic varieties used in this system largely because reports of glyphosate effects on mineral nutrition of GR soybeans are lacking. Several metabolites or degrdn. products of glyphosate have been identified or postulated to cause undesirable effects on GR soybeans. In this work we used increasing glyphosate rates in different application on cv. ‘BRS 242 GR’ in order to evaluate photosynthetic parameters, macro- and micronutrient uptake and accumulation and shoot and root dry biomass prodn. Increasing glyphosate rates revealed a significant decrease in photosynthesis, macro and micronutrients accumulation in leaf tissues and also decreases in nutrient uptake. The reduced biomass in GR soybeans represents additive effects from the decreased photosynthetic parameters as well as lower availability of nutrients in tissues of the glyphosate treated plants.”
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Perhaps Ewan can correct me on this, but a typical rate on GR crops is about 0.75 a.e./A or about the second rate (first actual dose) they show here (600g a.e. /ha). The highest rate they show here (2400 a.e./ha) is 4 times that. Just something to keep in mind.
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If this response posts… I have lost 3 lengthy ones already here (as they don’t show at akk I’m almost wondering if it’s something my end…) – 0.75 is the average US useage rate in crop, however I believe in South America the rate is approximately twice this – still 50% the max used.
As I mention in a lost post (I’m now copying anything I say to word so that when I lose a fifteen minute diatribe I don’t feel so cheated) this is a greenhouse study (using the same spray methodology as the earlier mentioned Mizzou study)- I need to talk to a soy person about some stuff to nail down the specifics but I presume this has a big impact – you simply don’t have the same plant density in a pot system as you do in a field environment – if you’re spraying 600g a.e. /ha onto pots with a 4″ (I have no idea what pot diameter was – they only give volume) diameter then you have at least 4″ between plants which isn’t the same as in a field setting (probably – I need to talk to a soy person about planting densities)
Most tellingly this experiment was done hydroponically – this alters the dynamics of everything involved – you cannot make conclusions about nutrient interactions in the soil from a hydroponic study – in hydroponics the glyphosate and the surfactant it is sprayed with will reach an equilibrium concentration throughout a hydroponic vessel wheras the interaction with soil will be entirely different – you also have nothing in the way of soil bacteria which has a massive impact on soil nutrient availability anyway (they’re using Hoagland’s solution replenished on a 10 day cycle with water topped off every day – if plant growth parameters or uptake kinetics were impacted by the application of roundup early on then you simply won’t have the same interactions – uptake needs to be normalized to plant dry weight – this is standard in the literature on nutrient uptake (normally root dry weight as this is a proxy for root surface area) – as does mg of any given nutrient per plant.
As a quick back of the envelope calculation regarding plant nutrient accumulation and dry weights:-
Root dry weights at different treatment rates – 0 – 6g, 1200 – 4g, 2400 – 2g
K mg/plant 0 – 700, 1200 – 550, 2400 – 200
K mg/g dry root – 0 – 116, 1200 – 110, 2400 – 100 (slight decrease, but nowhere near the severity of earlier, I’d doubt this is significant)
Ca mg/plant 0 – 475, 1200 – 325, 2400 – 100
Ca mg/g dry root – 0 – 79, 1200 – 81.2, 2400 – 50 (decrease at 2400, no change up to 1200)
Mo mg/plant 0 – 120, 1200 – 100, 2400 – 40
Mo mg/g dry root – 0 – 20, 1200 – 25, 2400 – 20 (no change at all)
So applying roundup to hydroponically grown soybeans in the greenhouse impacts plant growth. That’s about all the conclusion you can come to fairly from this paper – the rest is a direct result of impacting plant growth – as they didn’t try spraying with just glyphosate, just surfactant you can’t even say what is causative here – guessing that you’re chelating metal ions is just that, a guess.
As a further aside, a colleague, who has published a lot on plant nutrition and the like (can’t divulge name, confidentiality and all that), instantly guessed that this article was published in JPN as it is, and I quote “crappy” – not something I would have ever even realized (although the conclusions section of the article under discussion does rather help reinforce that particular hypothesis)
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I think that this paper has to do with the Precautionary Principle sub thread:
Title: Quantification of toxins in a Cry1Ac + CpTI cotton cultivar and its potential effects on the honey bee Apis mellifera L.
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Henry: Please explain further your thoughts re: Precautionary Principle.
I wish we had the data from this, as well as the companion study they mention. Apparently not out yet, from my cursory search.
Karl (or others more familiar with bees): I realize this is not directly relevant to these results, but is Apis mellifera the most common kept bee in China?
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Clem, thanks for providing the link. I had intended to include it in my post but the post was somehow sent before I finished.
I tried a number of ways to get the actual Murray et al. paper from 1988, but I was not successful so I looked at the two papers that cite it (which I presented in this thread).
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Earlier, when I was looking for articles relative to the energy component contribution sub thread, I had come across an article that looked at the genetic defects in the same plants but raised in two different temperature zones and had found more defects in the higher temperature raised plants. Somehow I lost the article and could not find it again. However I did find this one:
“Polyploidization mechanisms: temperature environment can induce diploid gamete formation in Rosa sp.”
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pdiff, regarding the precautionary principle. I have given my explanation. You can do a Google gearch with the keywords kuska and “precautionary principle” to see how I have applied it in threads that have not gone into oblivion.
In the following paper, the odds of an individual nuclear reactor failure per year are given (and how the odds were recalculated with additional knowledge).
What is not given is the odds of possible permanent damage to the DNA of a significant portion of the population that could be passed down from generation to generation.
I call death a one dimension effect; I call large scale damage to the gene pool a 2 dimensional effect (second dimension is time).
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Henry, Sorry for the confusion, but I did not see the explanation in regards to the paper you gave reference to. That paper noted that a specific type of Bt protein in GM cotton pollen produced no significant mortality effects on newborn honey bees and possibly showed some feedent suppression effects. The authors noted that this was only suggestive and eluded to further work examining the relationship that this later effect may have on behavioral and foraging responses.
Were you suggesting that this is rationale enough to ban Bt GM? If so, that would be irony, indeed. Invoking the PP to protect an invasive species that has severely suppressed and, possibly wiped out, many natural pollinators. The same PP, that if it had been implemented at the time, would have almost certainly prevented the introduction of the European honey bee, Apis mellifera. Benefits of a past “mistake” outweighing its risks?
On your quote: I can not follow this logic. The assumptions behind it are not sound. Death of one or a few individuals may, in fact, have profound influences on society or a population in general. It is a direct discontinuity in a specific gene flow, and thus, could potentially wipe out an individual or individuals who’s genetic continuance would have had measurable effect on the population. A plane wreck is tragic, yes, but as we saw with 911, those deaths can have a marked influence on the course of history (as did the death of a single individual which initiated WWI). In order for your mutation effects (chemical or nuclear) to significantly carry over to following generations, they would have to occur on a large scale, be non fatal, be similar in type, and not alter reproductive capability significantly.
The nuke article is an interesting take on the current situation and will probably become typical of the fodder for the anti-tech crowd. Should we remove nuke from the energy table? The most likely alternative to be implemented in the US would be more coal. Is this any better? In another irony, no. Is this where your PP would take us? You can’t prove a negative, Henry. How safe is safe? I’m not implying we should throw caution to the wind, but I’m also suggesting we can’t blindly throw the PP at everything and cower under the table without sufficient reason.
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The 2 links in the following Ewan R March 2, 2011 at 10:30 am post are no longer working (at least on my computer). If this is so for others, is there a way for the editors to repair them?
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Hm – the links may have been institutional or temporary or such – I’ll test tomorrow @ work and update later in the day.
Bizarrely I subscribed to this thread today from work but multiple comments died en-route. Annoyingly.
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Today I received a mailing from the American Phytopathological Society. In it they advertise a Book with the title: “Mineral Nutrition and Plant Disease”. The editors are LawrenceE. Datnoff, Wade H. Elmer, and Don M. Huber,
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I feel that when discussing something like GMOs one should also discuss the alternatives. I already mentioned
Even in the U.S. as unemployment rises or continues to be high, manpower may no longer be a limiting factor (manual weeding).
And there are alternate ways to control weeds (also “could be” should be added as who knows what new techniques we would have if the funding that went into GMOs went into research on alternate methods not dependent on the introduction of foreign genes).
One of the ways some/many? home owners control their weeds is to use corn gluten meal. Does it work and can it be utilized on a larger scale? Please see:
“Influence of Corn Gluten Meal on Squash Plant Survival and Yields”
Please note that the research has a USDA author.
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Absolutely, one should also take into account the alternatives replaced by a given technology and ask the question why whatever tech you propose (corn gluten as a herbicide or whatnot) hasn’t been adopted.
I don’t particularly see that a return to a great depression job market is anything other than a terrible concept – low paid seasonal labour is frankly a horrible answer to current unemployment issues (How many engineers, lawyers and middle aged professionals are even suited to a life of backbreaking manual labour any more?) – infact I can see a shift to such a form of agriculture simply causing more strife in terms of people getting angry about Mexican’s coming and stealing jobs – when the reason that immigrant workers come and do the crappy jobs on farms (picking fruit, weeding in situations where it is still done manually) is simply that the majority of Americans are not willing to work manual labour farm jobs any more (and frankly who can blame ‘em)
So long as you do the reverse and contemplate the economic hardships faced if the money spent developing GMOs had been spent on pie in the sky projects and had failed – living in imaginationland is all well and good but unless you can provide concrete evidence that your methods would be superior, and that research into other areas has been curtailed at the expense of GMOs (and given that corporate money developed the RR trait, and other HT traits, it’s not like it has subtracted from a pool of available academic resources, and it is categorically the case that the money would only have been spent in developing something that could be used to turn a profit (such is the nature of corporate research)) – I don’t feel this has been the case in the specific instance of herbicide tolerant traits.
I’m guessing probably not – first you’ve got your 50-75% survival rate of your planted crop – perhaps not a big deal for a homeowner (right now I have lettuce germinating which looks like it might have a 5% survival rate… oops) but not exactly good practice in a row cropping system (although that said there is a propensity for row crops to deal with gaps by simply filling them with little impact on end season yield), then you’ve got ineffective weed control (70% reduction in survival compared to the ~100% reduction one would expect from successful herbicide application), then the sheet quantity of corn gluten meal required to get good weed control – 1 acre is approximately 4000 square meters, so on an acre of crop you’d need to stick anywhere between 1000Kg and 4000Kg of corn gluten meal (250g rate and 750g per m^2 rates discussed in paper) (compare this with 600g per hectare for roundup active ingredient)
Now given that a bushel of corn will yield approximately 1.3 kg of corn gluten meal source and that average corn yields are in the region of 180 Bushels per acre one can expect to generate 234kg of corn gluten meal per acre of corn grown – so you need to grow 4 acres of corn to control the weeds on one acre by this method – clearly, for corn, this is intractable (plus the CGM used in this methodology is removed from whatever use it is put to in the first place, necessitating more production to cover the gap) – infact it is intractable to any solution where it is used on large acreage (ie any of the row crops currently modified to withstand herbicidal application) – there may be a potential to use it in organic production where acreage is small and profits high enough to warrant sticking tons of material on your field to control weeds (although given that most corn is GMO one wonders if there isn’t a potential to fall foul of your consumers for using GMOs in organic production….)
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Absolutely, one should also take into account the alternatives replaced by a given technology and ask the question why whatever tech you propose (corn gluten as a herbicide or whatnot) hasn’t been adopted.
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I don’t particularly see that a return to a great depression job market is anything other than a terrible concept – low paid seasonal labour is frankly a horrible answer to current unemployment issues (How many engineers, lawyers and middle aged professionals are even suited to a life of backbreaking manual labour any more?) – infact I can see a shift to such a form of agriculture simply causing more strife in terms of people getting angry about Mexican’s coming and stealing jobs – when the reason that immigrant workers come and do the crappy jobs on farms (picking fruit, weeding in situations where it is still done manually) is simply that the majority of Americans are not willing to work manual labour farm jobs any more (and frankly who can blame ‘em)
So long as you do the reverse and contemplate the economic hardships faced if the money spent developing GMOs had been spent on pie in the sky projects and had failed – living in imaginationland is all well and good but unless you can provide concrete evidence that your methods would be superior, and that research into other areas has been curtailed at the expense of GMOs (and given that corporate money developed the RR trait, and other HT traits, it’s not like it has subtracted from a pool of available academic resources, and it is categorically the case that the money would only have been spent in developing something that could be used to turn a profit (such is the nature of corporate research)) – I don’t feel this has been the case in the specific instance of herbicide tolerant traits.
I’m guessing probably not – first you’ve got your 50-75% survival rate of your planted crop – perhaps not a big deal for a homeowner (right now I have lettuce germinating which looks like it might have a 5% survival rate… oops) but not exactly good practice in a row cropping system (although that said there is a propensity for row crops to deal with gaps by simply filling them with little impact on end season yield), then you’ve got ineffective weed control (70% reduction in survival compared to the ~100% reduction one would expect from successful herbicide application), then the sheet quantity of corn gluten meal required to get good weed control – 1 acre is approximately 4000 square meters, so on an acre of crop you’d need to stick anywhere between 1000Kg and 4000Kg of corn gluten meal (250g rate and 750g per m^2 rates discussed in paper) (compare this with 600g per hectare for roundup active ingredient)
Now given that a bushel of corn will yield approximately 1.3 kg of corn gluten meal source and that average corn yields are in the region of 180 Bushels per acre one can expect to generate 234kg of corn gluten meal per acre of corn grown – so you need to grow 4 acres of corn to control the weeds on one acre by this method – clearly, for corn, this is intractable (plus the CGM used in this methodology is removed from whatever use it is put to in the first place, necessitating more production to cover the gap) – infact it is intractable to any solution where it is used on large acreage (ie any of the row crops currently modified to withstand herbicidal application) – there may be a potential to use it in organic production where acreage is small and profits high enough to warrant sticking tons of material on your field to control weeds (although given that most corn is GMO one wonders if there isn’t a potential to fall foul of your consumers for using GMOs in organic production….)
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Can anyone comment on this very recent paper?
“Effect of four herbicides on microbial population, soil
organic matter and dehydrogenase activity”
For this discussion, I am particularly interested in the parts of the graphs that compare glyphosate treatment with the control (not glyphosate compared with the other herbicides).
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Depends what you’re doing – if you’re looking to single glyphosate out as particularly bad then you absolutely need to compare it to other herbicides AND the control – it could be worse than others, the same as others or better than others and worse than the control – I believe the correct response to an individual herbicide should absolutely hinge on its comparitive effects as compared to other herbicides rather than as compared to nothing at all – unless you are simply making broad statements about herbicides in general.
I shall try and take a look at the paper when I have some time next week (or if the boy decides to take a prolonged nap at the same time as the wife…)
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The other herbicides are used differently. They are not sprayed on the crop as they will kill both crop and weed. Glyphosate is sprayed on glyphosate resistent GMOs to kill just the weeds; but when glyphosate is used in this manner, it appears (from this paper) that the soil is adversely affected in important ways. Am I missing something?
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Actaully yes Henry, you are missing something here – read the study and tell me specifically which plants were sprayed.
No plants.
All 4 herbicide treatments were applied directly to soil from a Cassava farm apparently with no plant growth at all.
So your point may well be a fair one, although not necessarily in the direction you wish it to be – to understand the impact under agronomic conditions one would have to assess the amount of glyphosate that actually makes it to the soil – given that a large amount is intercepted by the crop and associated weeds I would expect to see glyphosate utilized in this manner to perform in an intermediate fashion – less harmful than other herbicides, more harmful than doing nothing – exactly as claimed for the action of glyphosate based herbicides and the reason to utilize them in place of other herbicides.
Good catch – I completely missed the fact that the test wasn’t looking at soil with actual crops in it. That would change a lot. (although this still does say something about utilization as a pre-spray for no-till operations – although possibly not as much as one might like given that there is no indication whatsoever of what, if anything, was growing in the soil – indeed from the methods in the paper it is not 100% clear whether the spraying was done in the field or in lab samples)
PS – posting from home only sucks.
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It is my understanding that one of the major challenges in agriculture now is to adjust to global warming and predicted water shortages. In Nebraska my family did this at the beginning of the 20th century by traveling to Eastern Europe studying their farming practices and bringing back grain more suitable to Nebraska than the French and English grain that was then being utilized.
The following in-press paper discusses the problems in doing this with foreign genes and outlines an alternate non GMO procedure.
Title: Challenges in breeding for yield increase for drought
Author: Sinclair, Thomas R.
Authors affiliation: Crop Science Department, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA
To be published in: Trends in Plant Science, In Press, Corrected Proof,Mar 2011
I have a prepublication copy of the full paper, but I do not have permission to distributed it.
I recommend reading it when it comes out.
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Henry:
Your family brought back what particular “grain” – do you recall?
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Clem, My grandfather was able to sell his crops as seed. This is what is in my grandfather’s obituary. The following is from Anton Kuska’s obituary:
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“Michigan soybean producers have observed antagonism of glyphosate efficacy when it is tank mixed with foliar manganese (Mn) fertilizers. The objectives of this study were to 1) document the basis for the observed antagonism of glyphosate activity when applied with Mn micronutrient solutions, 2) determine why the antagonism occurs, and 3) develop recommendations for growers to effectively use foliar applied Mn with glyphosate in their soybean production systems.”
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Glad people are talking about this! Great discussions.
It glyphosate the issue, killing micro organisms? Plants dont get the mico nutrients they need so (sell)more micro nutrient supplementation then?
Is it possible plants are getting diseases because these micro organisms are dying? Allowing the dominate micro organisms to be disease causing?
How about these recent claims about this “new organism” crossing over into cows? Is this also said to be in connection with glyphosate?
I saw this information threw a website . It has Dr. Hubur in the video. I dont know much about the creditability of the website, though I can gather it does have a bias. The part that makes me worry is he talks about the mico environment of the soil He also continues on to talk about effects on cows and such.
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the website i refer to is http://www.fooddemocracynow.org/
and the video is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ed9b-JIAa1Q
link didn’t work..
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Food Democracy Now, there’s a funny one. They have this petition up demanding something only independent peer reviewed science be used when evaluation GM crops (which I’m sure is to imply that anything that gives them positive reviews in not independent or peer reviewed), then take Dr. Huber’s word for it on this, the thing which correct me if I’m wrong he still has yet to actually release his data for. Nothing like a double standard.
http://action.fooddemocracynow.org/sign/dr_hubers_warning/?akid=313.102173.SAl_E7&rd=1&t=4#petition
And on the side, I like how they’re called Food Democracy, not because nothing says democracy like trying to get the president to take away farmer’s choice to plant what they want based on you’re one narrow viewpoint, but because that sounds just like the the Health Freedom quacks. Food Democracy, Health Freedom, same weaselly tactic.
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I have sent out aerial picts I took of multiple fields while taking two plane rides over central Iowa in one week last Aug(2010) to many interested parties. Visible in those picts (5 and 8 Meg Nikon quality) were fields of both corn and beans that were heavily infected with SDS and Goss’ Wilt. The degree of infection and severity were very high and yield loss ended up being major at harvest. In the middle of all this devastation were fields owned, managed, and farmed by a father and son team who used conventional herbicides and hybrids. They also have built the soil quality and biological activity along with adding sulfur and micro-nutrients. Their fields were dark green with no signs of disease. Those fields encountered the same weather parameters, heat, humidty, and moisture as all the others in the area. No one who has viewed them has come up with any other conclusions than what I have. If anyone else would like to come up with an educated guess, they would be welcome to try. In my 35 U.S. harvests plus 9 in South America and working with crops I can draw no other conclusions.
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Bob, I understand that it seems obvious to you that there is only one difference between this one farmer’s fields and the surrounding fields. However, there are many differences, as you explain in your own comment here. The soil biological activity, mineral content, pesticides, crop genotypes are just some of the variables.
Based on peer-reviewed science (not anecdote), I am willing to consider the idea that use of glyphosate restricts minerals, and that this effect can cause yield decrease and/or disease increase in areas where soil mineral content is low. This does not however indicate that glyphosate is not a useful tool that can be safely used.
In a perfect world there would be no weeds thus no need for herbicides, or such low population levels and/or economic conditions that low yield due to weeds could be acceptable. However, this is not a perfect world. Some type of weed control is needed, and glyphosate is safer to humans and to non-target organisms than many other herbicides and is less energy intensive than non-chemical weed control methods. It also allows farmers to use no-till methods who would not otherwise use no-till.
Correct me if I am wrong, but it seems that you (and Huber) are arguing for a ban of glyphosate but all that would do is cause an increased reliance on more harmful herbicides. It would make far more sense to pursue strategies in which farmers can use glyphosate in ways that reduce mineral chelation and other negative effects such as the development of herbicide resistant weeds. This might mean more rotations so that glyphosate is only applied every other or fewer years. It might mean better cover cropping strategies where a compatible crop is used as weed control for the primary crop. There are many possibilities that could have a far more positive impact than a ban of glyphosate use.
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Given that crop genotype within a single field can be the difference between SDS affliction and not I don’t know why you’d necessarily need to look further – the strongest link in the literature on the occurance of disease affliction or not in an area prone to the disease is the susceptibility of the variety being used (indeed in any paper I’ve seen that suggests herbicides have an impact it appears that most herbicides have similar impacts, which really isn’t an arguement against using a single herbicide – just a watchout in using any) – funnily enough there is also a pretty strong correlation between no-till and fusarium (and therefore SDS one would postulate if you take the normal arguement to its rather extreme conclusion) – as compacted soil makes a better environment (I’ll dig up the paper Monday if required) – I don’t think anyone would use this as a valid arguement against using no-till practices however (it’d explain extra spurious connections between fusarium related disease and glyphosate however – correlation between glyphosate and increased no-till would increase the correlation between glyphosate and disease if the tillage was actually the issue)
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Just heard that Dr. Huber has been contacted by 60 min. to do a show on the “evils” of Round up and GMO’s. This should blow the roof off the subject. Nothing like a bit of misleading media to mislead the public to enable the misleading politicians to create bad policy.
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RE trace element and herbicide interactions –
Chlorsulfuron and similar, and with Diclofop and similar will cause Zn, Cu, and other trace element deficiencies if used as per label on marginally deficient areas. (Noted widely in Western Australia in cereals from first introduction the sulphonyl ureas, and then other herbicides in 1983 and ever since.) Applying these herbicides to crops where leaf tests have detected marginal levels of trace elements in previous years without addressing the deficiencies via soil or foliar application of the appropriate elements is a recipe for poor crops.
That claims that glyphosate may interfere with trace element metabolism in GMO soybeans do not seem to very surprising. We are just now starting to use RR canola on our gutless sands, and it will be interesting to see what happens.
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Is there any reason to believe the hype from the GMO-industry and scientists that create all the propaganda about the GMO? Nope.
They have one goal and one goal only: MORE PROFIT.
How on earth is patents on life going to improve food security?
How on earth is patents on food plants going to make food more accessible for poor people? Will poor people be able to buy more expensive food?
Today, more than 99 percent of the cultivated GMO-crops only give us more poision in the environment, in our water and in our food. And this is supposed to be a step in the right direction. WHAT?
More on Glyphosate and Roundup here:
http://www.monsanto.no/index.php/en/environment/gmo/gmo-news/92-monsantos-herbicide-roundup-linked-to-birth-defects-in-argentinas-agricultural-areas
GMO news:
http://www.monsanto.no/index.php/en/environment/gmo/gmo-news
GMO videos online:
http://www.monsanto.no/index.php/en/environment/gmo/gmo-videos
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Everyone has to make money somehow, but I wonder if you dismiss the propaganda from the other direction, which is often also motivated by money – as anti-GE organizations receive money from (or are themselves) marketers of competing goods?
A patent on a plant will not per se increase or decrease food security – it all depends on what the trait is, its availability, and usefulness. If you made a patented plant that grew crappy and was expensive, you wouldn’t negatively affect food security unless a farmer actually bought it. GE crops on the market perform as well as, and sometimes better than their conventional counterparts. The added expense of the seed is offset by reducing costs elsewhere, such as in weed and pest management, or fuel use on the farm. Farmers that lose money with GE seed will switch back to non-GE seed, which is not eliminated by the existence of patented GE seed.
Your concern about poor people and patented crops is common, but there are details that you haven’t heard about that are important to consider. Major biotech companies such as Monsanto and Syngenta license some of their varieties such that small subsistence farmers can save and replant the GE seed without owing royalties. The license is that if you make less than $10,000/year with your crops, you are exempted.
A (patented) GE crop can increase food security if it helps a farmer grow more food or protects them against things that can harm their crops (pests, weeds, disease, floods, drought), increases their income, or make food cheaper for them to buy. Any new and improved variety, developed conventionally or with biotechnology, patented or not, has the ability to do this.
Your statement about pesticides is not correct. Bt crops reduce the use of insecticides dramatically, and glyphosate crops have switched farmers away from more toxic herbicides. You make a lot of unfounded and exaggerated claims on your monsanto.no site, including attacking the integrity of scientists who you disagree with. It is ironic that one of the videos you promote is called “Scientists under attack.” I urge you to spend some time checking out our list of studies done on GE crops, accessible here. There’s been a lot of good independent research done on them, despite what you claim.
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Karl Haro von Mogel wrote:
“A patent on a plant will not per se increase or decrease food security – it all depends on what the trait is, its availability, and usefulness.”
I’m not speaking of something hypotetical and teoretical mambo jambo. I’m speaking of what patent on seeds actually result in, today, here and now.
I the e.g. the U.S., the number of different soy varieties that is not genetically modified has seen a dramatic reduction, as a direct consequence of policy from the big biotech companies.
So not ‘per se’, but in practical life, patent on life will result in more monocultures, less biodiversity and … a decrease in food security.
Now if you ad what the use of GM-crops actually result in today. If you look at what more than 99 percent of cultivated GM crops are… it is crops that is sprayed heavily with toxins (e.g. Roundup), or the GM crops produce an insecticide. These toxins end up in the environment, in the water, and in our food. It also reduce the soil quality.
Why do the farmer use GM crops then. They do not want to use money on labour (e.g. removing of weeds). And many farmers do not care about soil quality, they care about producing the food as cheap as possible. And most people want cheap food. But cheap food is not allways synonymous with high quality food.
The fact is that both the use of GM crops and conventional crops (which uses herbicides and pesticides) and other inputs which do not benefit the environment or soil quality … is not the best way. What we need is to get rid of the idea that cheap food is what we want. We want (or should want) healthy food and food that is produced in a way which does not destroy this planet.
The GM crops producers and the scientists which tries to convince us of the benefits of GM-crops are nothing less than irresponsible.
Here is why:
a)
Nobody can prevent the package of patented genes from spreading to conventional and organic crops, and to other living organisms.
That alone should be good enough reason to ban GM anything outside closed laboratories.
b)
When GM plants cross pollinate with other plants then the package of patented genes are reallocated and fragmented.
This also show how little control the GMO producer and scientist have. No control. So why have patents been allowed on living organisms then? Money, money and more money.
The sloppy technology and little understanding of what is going on in relation to all the unintended changes in the DNA when an organism are genetically modified speaks for itself.
Most scientists do not care about this. They care about their salary. Most scientists are payed by the industry. If the industry say jump, they jump… if they do not jump … then no salary. It is that simple.
My statements in relation to pesticides is entirely correct:
Why is there popping up new independent studies showing how dangerous e.g. Roundup is for life? Why?
Read:
Monsanto’s herbicide Roundup linked to birth defects in Argentina’s agricultural areas?:
http://www.monsanto.no/index.php/en/environment/gmo/gmo-news/92-monsantos-herbicide-roundup-linked-to-birth-defects-in-argentinas-agricultural-areas
Why is toxins from GM plants which produces ‘insecticides’ in the field causing problems for mammals when they eat it? Why?
GMO eggplant confirmed to be toxic:
http://www.monsanto.no/index.php/en/environment/gmo/gmo-news/173-gmo-eggplant-confirmed-to-be-toxic
Why is that pests develop resistance to toxic chemicals and/or toxins produced by the GM plant? Why do farmers that plant GM Bt crops suddenly have to apply pesticides? Why? Because the GMO producers have little or no control. What is the result when using e.g. Bt crops? The farmer end up with adding more toxins in the environment:
See this video which show how Bt crops in South Africa fails:
Environmental effects of insect resistant GMO plants:
http://www.monsanto.no/index.php/en/environment/gmo/gmo-videos/169-environmental-effects-of-insect-resistant-gmo-plants
Here is some other interesting video’s:
GMO spread to organic crops and affects social structures:
http://www.monsanto.no/index.php/en/environment/gmo/gmo-videos/170-gmo-spread-to-organic-crops-and-affects-social-structures
Genetically modified food – NOT needed to ensure food supply:
http://www.monsanto.no/index.php/en/environment/gmo/gmo-videos/149-genetically-modified-food-not-needed-to-ensure-food-supply
The Future of Food:
http://www.monsanto.no/index.php/en/environment/gmo/gmo-videos/124-the-future-of-food
We the consumers have never asked for genetically modified food!
We do not want it!
The scientists have no control on the so called biotechnology!
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Tore,
I just had a visit from a law professor who argues that Patents have not caused essentially what you are saying, but that instead, licenses (contracts) would be to blame. Also, your claim about biodiversity is incorrect – check out this new paper which shows that there are just as many varieties as there were before, despite the prevalence of patents.
You are right that cheap food is not synonymous with high quality food, but I think you can dispense with your stereotypes about farmers who grow GE crops. If you own a big plot of land and intend to farm it all your life and leave it for your children – you would have no desire to ruin your soil.
“When GM plants cross pollinate with other plants then the package of patented genes are reallocated and fragmented.” That is an old Chapela-era claim and has since been debunked. Transgenes are as stable as regular genes and not prone to breaking up and going all over the place as you describe.
You have ignored the substantive part of my comment with regard to pesticides, and are repeating your 99% figure. Repetition doesn’t make it true, nor does making unsupported claims. Animals have not been dying by eating Bt crops – in fact, the vast majority of animals raised for food in the US are constantly fed GE crops – which shows that either your source is wrong, or that there is a grand conspiracy of meat producers to cover up for the vast numbers of animal deaths caused by the feed they bought for them.
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Karl Haro von Mogel:
you posted the following comment in relation to reallocation and fragmenting of package of patented genes:
“That is an old Chapela-era claim and has since been debunked. Transgenes are as stable as regular genes and not prone to breaking up and going all over the place as you describe.”
I find it hard to believe that you are not familiar with the work of Ignacio Chapela and David Quist:
Transgenic DNA introgressed into traditional maize landraces in Oaxaca, Mexico:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v414/n6863/full/414541a.html
Here is some of their key findings:
a)
Genetic contamination
b)
During cross pollination transgenes may split up and insert themselves randomly in the plant genome
Anyway, it does not matter what kind of studies, reviews or information I post here. Regardless of my links and allegations, you will continue to produce the same propaganda tricks which have been used by the GMO-industry and scientists who want this technology to be used.
One interesting thing to mention is that you do not answer to one of the most problematic issues with GM crops: Contamination of other crops and related species.
Right now this is hell on earth for many farmers. Do you not consider this a problem?
Bt crops resulting in sick animals is definitely not some conspiracy mambo jambo:
You have obviously missed this article to:
GM eggplant confirmed to be toxic:
http://www.monsanto.no/index.php/en/environment/gmo/gmo-news/173-gmo-eggplant-confirmed-to-be-toxic
One reason why that story is important is that there is a lot of similar GM plants which is consumed by people and animals. If Cry-proteins can cause severe health-issues in rats, then you do not have to be a professor, scientist or whatever to understand that other GM-plants which have identical or similar Cry-proteins in them, probably can result in severe health issues.
But we consumers are currently guinea pigs for the GMO-industry and the irresponsible scientists. And this is probably going to continue for a while with the sloppy risk assessments being done in many countries, where the regulator bodies only require to look at studies done by the GMO producer. In my opinion this is a huge mistake. We are now just repeating the mistakes from the PCB, Dioxin and DDT period. Nothing much has really changed.
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Simply hilarious – if it were not for your website, I would call Poe’s Law on you. Few people can interpret me bringing up Ignacio Chapela to me being unfamiliar with his controversial paper. This strains the imagination. Not only have I met Chapela, I have interviewed him, and read the criticisms of his claims, and his responses, etc. His claim that the transgenes have broken up and traveled around the genome remain unsupported, and even Nature published a statement saying:
“In light of these discussions and the diverse advice received, Nature has concluded that the evidence available is not sufficient to justify the publication of the original paper.”
The term “contamination” is a loaded term, and it attaches a judgement to a factual claim that is unwarranted. The important issues are whether people can maintain reasonable crop identities on the farm and in the store, and the effects on the environment. To say that a harmless transgene is present in a farmer’s field at low levels, or in a wild population in the same way, is not to say that any actual harm has occurred. The same thing goes for new traits derived through breeding, mutagenesis, and the many other ways that the genes of crops are modified.
You complain that most research done on GE crops is done by the companies, yet you offer up anti-gmo-group-funded papers as a response? They didn’t even confirm toxicity at all, they’re just trying to poke holes in others’ research. Propaganda tricks, indeed.
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Karl Haro von Mogel said:
“Simply hilarious – if it were not for your website, I would call Poe’s Law on you.”
You can call any law you want. It does not make your GMO propaganda more credible!
The fact that Nature bailed out on the study made by Ignacio Chapela and David Quist, has something to do with money and politics, and nothing to do with the credibility of the study.
Take one of the findings: Contamination, and unintentional spread of the patented genes, genes from bacteria and viruses which normally do not happen to exist in our food-plants. Is that unreal?
YES OR NO?
I never ever though that my articles and links to studies and reviews made by independent scientists would convince you to admit the danger of GMO-crops and other GMO-organisms released in the environment. The same goes for most of those that carry the GMO hat.
It is actually quite funny that you go as far as trying to convince me and others that genetic contamination is not an hazardous adventure.
The introduction of the GMO line MON810 in e.g. Spain in Europe is equal to hell on earth for organic and conventional farmers which get their crops contaminated.
For you, the GMO-industry and scientists which want more use of e.g. GMO-crops, this does not matter at all. It is one thing that matter… MONEY.
You are not willing to admit that the scientists have no control whatsoever over the unintended changes in the DNA which is a direct consequence of the introduction of the foreign genes. Genes from virus, bacteria, fish etc. are inserted into our food plants. And the irresponsible scientists and people like you just try to tell us that this is normal. IT IS NOT NORMAL. IT DOES NOT HAPPEN IN THE REAL WORLD. IT ONLY HAPPENS IN THE LABORATORY.
When did a fish, a bacteria or virus ever before mate with a corn plant, or any other food plants? WHEN?
Who is the hilarious here. Definitely not me. But you are a good candidate, as well as the GMO-industry and the rest of the irresponsible scientists which in one way or another make money on this business.
Lucky for me, people can draw their own conclusions about this:
GMO news:
http://www.monsanto.no/index.php/en/environment/gmo/gmo-news
Videos about GMO in your browser (only for those that is not blinded by the GMO propaganda though):
http://www.monsanto.no/index.php/en/environment/gmo/gmo-videos
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To put it simply, Chapela never confirmed his results with a second method such as DNA sequencing. His claims remain to this day, extraordinary and not supported by the scientific literature.
“When did a fish, a bacteria or virus ever before mate with a corn plant, or any other food plants? WHEN?”
You’ve got to be joking here. When did a virus mate with a corn plant? Every time a virus infects a corn plant it is putting its DNA (or RNA) in the corn plant’s cells. If one of those cells eventually becomes part of a seed, then this new DNA gets inherited. Today, corn is 85% virus by DNA. DNA does in fact move between species, even distant ones. Humans have about 100 genes transferred from bacteria, rice has one gene I know of from millet, and pea aphids have a gene from a fungus that allows them to make their own beta-carotene and turn orange like a carrot. Again, DNA transfer does in fact occur between distantly-related species in nature, just not by “mating” but through other means. This is not propaganda, this is science. The fact that you cannot tell the difference is not my problem.
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Methinks thou dost protest too much.
I forget the exact number, but the corn genome is to a first approximation viral in nature – a vast percentage of it is in absolute opposition to your rambling nonsense.
If bacteria did not insert genes into the genomes of plants then there would be no modern genetic engineering – bacteria which insert genes into plant genomes are the workhorse of the whole endeavour and are totally naturally occuring.
Equal to hell on earth? Really? Care to back this up with real world evidence rather than baseless assertion? Pictures of fields of buring pitch, tortured souls, or even the guy from Hellraiser chasing Spanish farmers around would be much appreciated.
Why? The paper was flawed.
Define, specifically, rather than with hand waving, why it would be hazardous even if it did occur. Attempt to do so without wailing about unintended consequences, not knowing, or other slimy dodges.
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Ewan R said:
“bacteria which insert genes into plant genomes are the workhorse of the whole endeavour and are totally naturally occuring.”
You must be talking about Agrobacterium… which is used by the biotech companies to force alien genes into our food plants… Ohhh food plants which before where ours, but now is owned by the biotech companies…
Regardless is the GMO-producers use Agrobacterium or a GENE-gun to force these patented genes into plant DNA:
When did Cry-genes which produce toxic proteins when the GMO corn grow in the field, ever occur naturally in Corn?
When did Agrobacterium ever before move Cry-genes from Bacillus Thurengiensis into a corn plant DNA before… without the help from a scientist. WHEN?
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Tore,
You are engaging in what is called “moving the goal posts.” You first declared that genes don’t move between distantly related organisms in nature, only in a lab. Now that it has been pointed out to you that you were wrong in this assertion, you are asking if nature has moved X specific gene into Y specific organism as a test for whether or not ‘nature does it.’ This is absurd, because even if nature plopped millions of new genes in organisms every day, it may never end up with a particular combination that you specify beforehand. You are setting the bar unreasonably high for drawing your non-existent line between natural and artificial.
Besides, the question of whether or not Corn is “natural” can be easily solved by this: Since when has corn not required human intervention to harvest and sow its seeds?
Not for the last 5,000+ years.
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Your statement
Idiot.
Nobody has claimed they have. As Karl states, you’re shifting the goalposts.
You were utterly wrong about bacterial or viral DNA being present in plants (unless we don’t give you the benefit of the doubt about your infantile use of mating with, which is a sadder stance to be taking if meant literally), so you move to a specific which you know isn’t the case. Let’s be clear then – why is it that Cry proteins concern you so much but that other random insertions over the past few billion years don’t worry you at all?
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The adoption rate and retention rate of farmers utilizing them remains the strongest reason to believe the “hype”
Is there any reason to believe the hype from the anti-GMO activists? Unless an absolute paucity of evidence is a reason to believe in something (hey, faith is generally held as a virtue particularly when believing in the bugshit crazy right?) then no. There ain’t.
Citation needed. Also definitions on what precisely you’re categorizing as a poison, and what metrics you are using to assess that there is more of it. Karl covers the reasons that we need these definitions and metrics.
Oh look. Links with more of the same horseshit that turns up again and again – does the content magically become believable because its coming from a slightly different link? Probably not. Particularly on a site which gives any creedance whatsoever to a moron like Chopra.
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I am glad to see someone brought up soil quality. I would think the bigger issue is the degradation of the top soil in the mid west. Rather than GMO crops themselves. Round up has warning about ingesting the chems and advises to wash your hand before eating…and a label about water contamination…
Another issue is the usage of Nitrates/ Nitrites and Phosphorus chem fertz in the soil ending up in ground water and river systems.
the “contamination” of none GMO crops is also well documented, which I would consider a problem not only for the farmer but GMO corps. trying to enforce their patent on food… which in itself sound absurd. Whats next human babies? Owning water right sounds equally crazy…
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It looks like the U.S. corn yield is heading down to an eventual 141 to 143 bu/a range. I have quite a few consulting clients who followed the advice formulated for them this summer who will beat their respective neighborhoold averages or top yields by quite a margin. Sooner or later, if you value a U.S. food supply, more people will have to realize that plant health is being destroyed by the current farming and herbicide application practices.
This is the third year in a row with major plant disease problems in Iowa and Illinois. The flippant answers by many of the sources you quote as experts are now longer viable to even the casual observer. In 2009 it was a major problem with Fusarium and Anthracnose, in 2010 it was SDS and Goss’ Wilt. In 2011 it was Goss’ that grabbed the headlines. What will it be in 2012.
With all the data now compiled via tissue testing and now biological soil assessment, the trends and truth is becoming clearer with assembled proof. If the USDA projected the actual corn to be a negative number, which it would be if they provided accurate export and feed consumption figures, this issue would get more attention. Food prices played a large role in the North African political unrest in 2010 and 2011. We are not immune here in the Western World.
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Re apparent decrease in yield.
What are the major crop/climate growth models showing? There was a paper out of the UK floated about 6 months ago suggesting that ‘non existent’ global warming seems to be having an effect of about that level. Higher nigh time temperatures/ & transpiration etc.
As we live in a multifactorial world, good systems understanding is essential to tease out an understating of apparent trends.
Agree with the issue of future food supplies. My governments here seem to be hell bent on destroying any significant public funding for Agricultural R&D here. Too much benefit for the common good, corporations cannot capture the profit so well.
How do we grow as much food in the next 40 years as the last 500 years? We do not have a new planet to develop.
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Here I was lamenting the paucity of activity here…. But I would have wished for a better class of “arguments” to demolish!
Let me add my tuppence to the discussion though: What if I mentioned that I made a stew last night, one that contained a plant, and I just discovered that that plant contained a [ahem] POISONOUS PESTICIDE: A BIOCIDE/FUNGICIDE CALLED 5-METHYL-2-ISOPROPYLPHENOL!
It is not an inherent characteristic of a chemical that it is toxic. Rather, there has to be a defined organism against which it IS toxic. If lepidoptera did not exist, CRY1 would not be labeled “toxic.” Conversely, if a chemical is to be labeled as “toxic” just because it is so to some organism somewhere, we’d have to label oxygen “toxic” owing to its effects on Clostridium.
The argument about “new proteins” in our food…. This was touched/skirted, but, if you’ll humour me, let me point-out that CRY[1-n] are proteins, and that there are zillions of proteins in every living thing. They are different in different living things. For many of them, we have no idea what they do, what they are FOR in the organism that produces them, but we do know that, with vanishingly few (but notable) exceptions, they are all pretty much the same to proteases like the ones in our digestive system. We are MADE to consume random proteins. I’m pretty sure not one of my ancestors up until the twentieth century ever was faced with having to digest proteins from soybeans, and none until my generation faced proteins from mangoes or kiwifruit. But I (we) have experienced no problems. Is there any reason to suppose there is some special “toxic” attribute of a CRY protein (vs the thousands of “new” ones in the foods mentioned)? I’m sure some of the proteins in these foods are “toxins” to something. Add to this the fact that CRY proteins HAVE been tested, and it seems that using the scare-words is pd irresponsible.
As for the “hell-on-earth” hyperbole, I think our correspondent is obscurely referring to the European regulations/attitudes that 0.000000001% “contamination” by genes or components from GMO plants is defined as unacceptably large, jeopardizing organic certifications and the like. It seems to me that the definition is the problem.
How’d I do?
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Now that’s bringing a gun to a pillow fight.
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‘Better than the other way ’round!
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LOL I beat Eric on this follow-up:
Roundup/Glyphosate Background Materials
http://www.monsanto.com/products/Pages/roundup-safety-background-materials.aspx#huber
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To Karl Haro von Mogel and Evan R, and the rest of the readers:
Notice who is starting to swearing. It’s not me…
It looks to me that you guys are on thin ice… very thin ice.
You say that I start changing the position of the goal posts here… well, is that really true? What about you guys… when I come up with very simple to understand issues with GMOs and describe why GMOs used outside closed laboratories probably should never be allowed, then you shift focus entirely.
When I produce links to scientific independent studies showing severe issues related to GMOs you shift focus or start referring to industry funded studies.
Here is one such big problem with some types of GMO’s:
GMO eggplant confirmed to be toxic:
http://www.monsanto.no/index.php/en/environment/gmo/gmo-news/173-gmo-eggplant-confirmed-to-be-toxic
Currently most of the feeding-studies made by the GMO-industry is a joke. 14 days feeding studies with rats…. 14 days! This is the kind of studies that are designed to avoid finding any possible issues. What about a 90 days feeding study where the rats get 2 days each week on some other feed than the one that is supposed to be tested. This is what the GMO-industry call science (in this case Mahyco in India)… Read the article in the link above, and please read the independent reviews of the corrupt Mahyco feeding studies…
Of the cultivated area of current GMOs approx 20-30 percent are genetically modified so the food-plant produce TOXIC proteins… these proteins now show strong indications that they are toxic not only to insects… but also to mammals. This is what we, the consumers, have to deal with, because of complete lack of responsibility from the GMO-industry and the PRO GMO-scientists.
Now.. what about the rest of the GMO’s? Which cover aproximately the rest of the cultivated GMO areas around the world: Ha… they result in massive spraying of super toxic chemicals, which has proven to be a LOT more toxic than the producers have admitted. Who has to deal with this madness: The consumer, animals and environment! All because of MONEY and short sighted solutions.
More of this here:
Monsanto’s herbicide Roundup linked to birth defects in Argentina’s agricultural areas?
http://www.monsanto.no/index.php/en/environment/gmo/gmo-news/92-monsantos-herbicide-roundup-linked-to-birth-defects-in-argentinas-agricultural-areas
So basically what the GMO-industry and the PRO-GMO scientists are giving us is more poison on the platter, more poison in the environment. Then you have the fact (something that most PRO GMO scientists still does not want to admit)…. contamination of conventional and organic crops, contamination of related plants and even contamination of soil microbes… with the package of patented genes.
One very bad result of patenting (not only with the GMOs) seeds, which I by the way have mentioned before, is that the GMO-industry limits what kind of seeds are available to the farmers. The GMO-industry are doing whatever they can to prevent farmers from getting access to non-GMO-seeds…. You do not have to take my word for it either (he he)… here is an excellent presentation (video) by David Quist, titled: “Consolidation in the global seed Industry: Implications for farmer choice, innovation and food security”:
http://blip.tv/bion20101122/6-david-quist-centre-for-biosafety-tromsoe-4463816
Okay… the PRO GMO scientist want to tell us that MONOCULTURE is not a direct result of patenting per se.. bla bla… But it is most definitely what is happening in real life. In other words.. good bye food security and biodiversity. This is what
Here are the rest of the presentations (videos) from the seminar arranged by The Norwegian Biotechnology Advisory Board:
http://blip.tv/bion20101122
I also recommend the presentation from Devinder Sharma (two parts) which describes very well why the GMO industry HAS NOT DELIVERED:
http://blip.tv/bion20101122/7-part-1-devinder-sharma-journalist-researcher-and-political-analyst-4460982
http://blip.tv/bion20101122/8-part-2-devinder-sharma-journalist-researcher-and-political-analyst-4460997
Enjoy!
Time to wake up before it is too late:
Organic is the way forward!
http://www.rodaleinstitute.org/fst30years
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Tore,
You say that I start changing the position of the goal posts here… well, is that really true? What about you guys… when I come up with very simple to understand issues with GMOs and describe why GMOs used outside closed laboratories probably should never be allowed, then you shift focus entirely.
Yes it is true that you shifted the goalposts. I have been responding to your claims directly, so you can’t say that I’m changing the subject to avoid your arguments. You also claimed that people have been giving you industry studies in response to your arguments – where? You are making this up entirely. You are clearly not reading anything I am saying, nor learning from it.
No, Bt is not shown to be toxic to mammals, please do better research. Also, the Test Biotech-funded ‘meta-analysis’ of Bt eggplant did not confirm it was toxic at all – it is a standard piece of data dredging akin to what anti-global warming organizations put out to poke holes in climate science.
It is clear that your purpose here is not to engage in discussion, but to make outlandish claims, deny the rebuttals of those claims, go “blah blah blah” rather than understand what people are saying, and dump piles of links to your own site. You are not being a very good representative of your perspective.
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Karl,
Ugh! You have a stronger stomache than I. I usually just toss-out any such salad of repetitions of disproven assertions and unsubstantiated new ones especially when it has such a sauce of casual irrationality (“The GMO-industry are doing whatever they can to prevent farmers from getting access to non-GMO-seeds” “we, the consumers, have to deal with, because of complete lack of responsibility from the GMO-industry and the PRO GMO-scientists”).
I am sad for our society when such displays of dangerous irrationality are routinely taken seriously: don’t you think it would have been better to have taunted and ridiculed these silly words or even simply ignored them? Maybe not, but it sure is temting. Do you think you might be able to break-through and get this guy to think rationally? Maybe you hope that people witnessing a reasoned and polite response will enhance the credibility of our side? I have to admit that I’m turning into Tim Minchin when it comes to stuff like this. See “Storm”: http://youtu.be/HhGuXCuDb1U
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Do you think you might be able to break-through and get this guy to think rationally?
Probably not. But the other 12 people viewing the page today could notice the difference.
“Storm” is awesome!
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“Organic is the way forward” ??? Not sure what you mean by or define as “Organic”.
I would suggest a good survey of the Old Testament. Look carefully at the promises and curses out lined by the prophets if one did not obey their God.
If …. Then … Else.
We are looking at a Mediterranean climate, based on grains and orchard crops, with grazing animals. A recurring theme is uncertainty due to climate/insects (eg locusts)/disease, animal diseases together with fire etc as well as the odd wild animal – from lions to humans – raiding tribes to major powers wandering through to extract tribute / slaves.
That is a moderately good understanding of an ancient agricultural system. If you do not have the tools to manage disruptions, which will happen, one goes hungry or needs to pay for imported food.
What I get totally annoyed about are people claiming the high ground “Organic” yet not understanding that an integrated production agronomist uses all of the tools in the tool box, not just those which may fit into ones particular worldview of how we should farm. Eg by Astrology as with so called bio-dynamic system out of 1880’s Austria that is still promoted here.
Sure, each tool needs to be balanced out and not abused. Ploughing at the wrong time and dust bowels; part of our heritage.
Have a good look at just how well the system produces as per the climatic restraints and the pollution caused, and the biological, cultural and economic collateral damage. Sure we need to reign in the excesses of cooperate excesses, but this also entails the restrictions placed on neighbours by those with unreal high levels of expectations – Absolute no GMO detectable in produce to ensure it is ‘organic’. If not, are they to pay their neighbours damages to cover lost opportunities? I know it works both ways.
Despite many claims, I have yet to see significant broad acre benefits for Australian agriculture though tight organic systems. Sure niche markets help, but bulk production does not improve. 7 billion and counting.
For example: owner complaining of problems with his ostrich’s damaging themselves if panicked. However the pens were placed next to the neighbors airstrip from which he top dresses fertilizer on his steep hill slopes. Ostrich’s do not like sudden noises and will try to run through fences when panicked, particularly by a huge ‘eagle’.
Some detailed accommodation is required. In the actual case with the ostrich farm, a phone call the night before is the process, and is sufficient, as the animals are then tightly penned up.
RE seeds. The patents on the early GMO’s should have, are about to expire, so no one owns them.
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Here is an interesting interview between Dr. Huber and Dr. Mercola, as well as a very informative article about how the use Glyphosate and GMO now are about to totally destroy the soil in the US.
The bottom line is that Glyphosate (e.g. Roundup) immobilize vital nutrients like Zinc, Copper, Manganese and Iron, … in the plant. It also destroy the otherwise good habitat for important microorganisms in the soil. The lack of vital nutrients in the plant lead to plant diseases, as well as health problems in animals which are feed with e.g. GMO-soy and GMO-corn (which contain residues of Glyphosate .. roundup and have little or close to nothing of the vital minerals.
In e.g. GM-soy and GM-corn INDEPENDENT scientists and veterinarians have now discovered a new pathogen which now are linked to health issues in livestock feed on the same GMO-plants. This new pathogen is new to science, it can be cultivated, and is REAL.
See interview and read article here:
Dr. Huber on how Glyphosate and GMO destroy soil quality – affecting health of plants, animals and humans:
http://www.monsanto.no/index.php/en/environment/gmo/gmo-videos/179-dr-huber-on-how-glyphosate-and-gmo-destroy-soil-quality-affecting-health-of-plants-animals-and-humans
So, what we need is agriculture which make these vital micronutrients available for plants, livestock and humans.
So what does the USDA do with this information. So far: Next to nothing.
The next question now is: How is this going to affect export of GMO-plants where this new pathogen is in abundance? Do USDA believe that this issue will just magically disappear, and that regulatory authorities in other countries will forever close their eyes for these issues?
It is quite interesting that more than 99 percent of all cultivated GMO’s only bring this to the table: Herbicide tolerance and food and feed plants which have been made into factories which produce toxic proteins. Not much to brag about if you ask me. None of us consumers have asked for genetically modified crops that only bring poison in the environment, in our water and food.
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Hi Tore,
Yeah I have noticed the Huber-Mercola interview, but I so far have not been impressed with the evidence presented about the “micro-fungus.” It has been almost a year, and no evidence has been released to the scientific community to back any of it up. I have also talked to Huber on the phone for almost 2 hours, and there are pieces missing from this story about how it initially went public, as well as the fact that the claims being made about links to GE crops, and critical details of the mystery pathogen, aren’t even based on confirmed experiments. Anastasia’s post about extraordinary claims linked at the top of this post is still quite relevant.
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Is the Dr. Mercola interviewing Dr Huber that you refer to the same Dr Mercola behind that Burzynski cancer miracle movie? See the following links for details and background…
http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/4611/does-burzynski-have-a-miracle-cancer-cure-being-suppressed-by-the-fda
All I can say is that if so he can’t be very choosy about his subjet matter and must have the scientific understanding of a caveman 🙂
Jonathan
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Hi Tore, you may want to check out my post about the mysterious organism here: https://biofortified.org/2011/02/extraordinary-claims/
It addresses your questions.
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I find it far more interesting to discuss how Glyphosate actually works. It seems to me that Dr. Don Huber is quite an expert on this topic.
For those that cannot distinguish between the medium (Dr. Mercola) and the Source (Dr. Don Huber), in my previous post (Jonathan), I have a link to an excellent paper written by Dr. Don M. Huber himself:
AG CHEMICAL AND CROP NUTRIENT INTERACTIONS – CURRENT UPDATE
Don M. Huber, Emeritus Professor, Purdue University
Click to access Huber.pdf
That paper has some really interesting information about Glyphosate and e.g. Roundup.
On the very first page of that paper, you will find a chapter titled “UNDERSTANDING GLYPHOSATE”. That chapter says pretty much all there is to know about the issue initially targeted by the article by Ansastasia:
DOES GLYPHOSATE RESTRICT CROP MINERAL UPTAKE?
THE ANSWER, in short: YES!
The before mentioned chapter begins like this:
“Glyphosate (N-(phosphomonomethyl)glycine) is a strong metal chelator and was first patented as such by Stauffer Chemical Co. in 1964 (U.S. Patent No. 3,160,632). Metal chelators are used extensively in agriculture to increase solubility or uptake of essential micronutrients that are essential for plant physiological processes. They are also used as herbicides and other biocides (nitrification inhibitors, fungicides, plant growth regulators, etc.) where they immobilize specific metal co-factors (Cu, Fe, Mn, Ni, Zn) essential for enzyme activity. In contrast to some compounds that chelate with a single or few metal species, glyphosate is a broadspectrum chelator with both macro and micronutrients (Ca, Mg, Cu, Fe, Mn, Ni, Zn). It is this strong,
broadspectrum chelating ability that also makes glyphosate a broad-spectrum herbicide and a potent antimicrobial agent since the function of numerous essential enzymes is affected (Ganson
and Jensen, 1988).”
For those really interested in uncensored information about this topic, it is just to click the link above, which takes you to Dr. Don M. Hubers own document. Then you can read his information, and try to compare that with the information posted by Anastasia.
That industry funded scientists now try to give the impression that this is not the case… that is something entirely different. That has more to do with disinformation and propaganda!
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“For those that cannot distinguish between the medium (Dr. Mercola) and the Source (Dr. Don Huber), in my previous post (Jonathan), I have a link to an excellent paper written by Dr. Don M. Huber himself:”
Two points:
1) I wasn’t failing to distinguish between your medium (Dr. Mercola) and Source (Dr. Don Huber). I was pointing out that Dr Mercola has a reputation for blindly promoting quacks and conspiracy theorists when it comes to scientific journalism.
2) I’m worried that you fall into the category of those who believe “an excellent paper” is just any paper that goes against the scientific consensus regardless of how it cherry-picks (or indeed cherry-ignores) the existing knowledge that doesn’t back up its preconceived theories.
Why do conspiracy theorists lack critical skills so badly? They seem to think it makes them a better authority on a subject when they entirely ignore the balance of evidence. In fact the opposite is true. I’m sure there are psychological theses on the subject that would make an interesting read.
Jonathan
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“For those really interested in uncensored information about this topic…”
There’s no censoring of information going on here.
“I find it far more interesting to discuss how Glyphosate actually works.”
You brought up the mystery pathogen, now you’re not interested to talk about it? Anyway, it would be good if in your discussion of how glyphosate works, to include its known mode of action in plants, which is why the GE glyphosate tolerant plant survives being sprayed. This mechanism seems to be always missing from discussions of Huber’s claims about chelation being the primary effect.
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Jonatan said e.g.:
“2) I’m worried that you fall into the category of those who believe “an excellent paper” is just any paper that goes against the scientific consensus regardless of how it cherry-picks (or indeed cherry-ignores) the existing knowledge that doesn’t back up its preconceived theories.”
That is of course a possibility, but as you probably know the consensus you are talking about comes from the great family of scientists which are payed by the industry? How many of the scientists today are payed (directly or indirectly) by the industry? 95 percent… 98 percent?
How long do you believe these ‘payed-by-the-industry’ scientists are payed if they publish papers which ‘say’ something the industry does not want to hear… no more payments… frozen shoulder tactics… disinformation…
What happened to Arpad Pusztai? What happened to lots of other honest and very skilled scientists, after they published information which revealed stuff that the ‘industry’ or politicians did not want to hear? Is Arpad Pusztai alone? Nope.
http://www.gmwatch.eu/latest-listing/1-news-items/9866-arpad-pusztai-biological-divide-1512008
The word consensus must be one of the most abused words in the history of science. And these days, scientists do not hesitate to repeat disinformation for ages, untill the disinformation suddenly magically are transformed into ‘facts’, which again are supported by ‘consensus’, and then published in countless of ‘peer reviewed’ reports.
Not long ago the EU commission published a paper titled: “A decade of EU-funded GMO research”.
Click to access a_decade_of_eu-funded_gmo_research.pdf
A better title on this report might have been: “A decade with lies and fraud from scientists which produce propaganda material for the GMO-industry”.
Why you may ask? On page 16 in this report the following allegation is postulated: “The main conclusion
to be drawn from the efforts of more than 130 research
projects, covering a period of more than 25 years of research,
and involving more than 500 independent research groups, is
that biotechnology, and in particular GMOs, are not per se
more risky than e.g. conventional plant breeding technologies.”
That statement is nothing less than a lie. And that statement is again the origin of so called ‘consesus’ and ‘peer reviewed’ reports, BUT not by independent science. That statement is nothing less than an illusion created by the GMO-industry and PRO GMO scientists. And an illusion which have been repeated over and over again.
But, even today, if a lie is repeated over and over again, it is still a lie.
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Tore, your dismissal of the sheer amount of independent research produced that supports a conclusion you disagree with is really disappointing. You have to wonder how 500 research groups could be lying. You have to wonder how 130 research projects from these groups could possibly be fraudulent. You have to wonder how in the 25 years of research covered, that not one of them got disgruntled and told the world about the vast conspiracy that you have to believe is responsible for producing this “allegation.” I’m glad you took the time to read some of that report, but it doesn’t seem that you learned anything from it.
In the real world, this “allegation” is called a conclusion. Science does not operate by mere opinion, but by conclusions that can be drawn from clearly carried-out experiments. When you reject that conclusion because of pre-determined beliefs and/or believe that the methods employed (like putting peer review in scare-quotes) are an illusion, then you have crossed into anti-science territory. Most people who hold anti-science opinions don’t think that they do, because they think that they are standing up for the One True Science that supports their beliefs and their beliefs alone. You are the one making an “allegation” masquerading as a conclusion.
Thus far, my conclusion is that you are not interested in the facts, because even a massive fact-dump like the EU report you dismiss is not enough for you. You are welcome to prove me wrong in your response, but in order to do so you will either need to reverse your opinion, or back up your allegation that these scientists are willfully lying. Good luck.
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I’ll be billing you for one monitor, now covered in coffee and spit.
Made.
My.
Day.
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“What happened to Arpad Pusztai? What happened to lots of other honest and very skilled scientists, after they published information which revealed stuff that the ‘industry’ or politicians did not want to hear? Is Arpad Pusztai alone? Nope.”
Pusztai and a few (that’s right a few) have indeed published research that GM causes damage to health and even causes death. On the contrary hundreds of other researchers, many from laboratories independent of industry, have shown that commercially available GM crops have no health effects. If you truly want to know who is right you have to assess all the available research and decide which methodologies, results and statistics used present the strongest case.
If then you still think Pusztai (and those with similar results) produced the most watertight scientific evidence fair enough.
At the end of the day you then have to consider that we’ve all been eating GM-containing food now for almost 15 years with no directly linked health effects. Additionally every lab animal in the world has been eating a high GM diet for a similar length of time with no notable effects other than in GM feeding papers by Pusztai et al. How could that be the case if your theories were correct?
The argument from anti-GM lobbyists is always to point to decreases in health of the human population in recent years, but none of the major trends in any way correlate to the introduction or prevalence of GM material in the human diet since GM crops were introduced.
You wouldn’t get anyone who supports the use of GM-technology claiming that areas of public health that have improved in the last 20 years (eg. heart disease, stroke, many cancers) are due to positive benefits of eating GM. Why? Because to make such an inference from the correlation just isn’t supported by any data. Much as you might not like it, that proof of correlation, cause and effect is actually quite important.
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Tore,
You think 98% of scientists are paid by industry? Further evidence you are talking out of your ar$e.
Enjoy your baseless conspiracy theories. I’d love to hear your views on vaccines, chemtrails, global warming and 9/11. I just love listening to self-assured stupids.
Jonathan
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Here is an intersting NEW book, available as a free PDF document:
The GMO Emperor Has No Clothes – A Global Citizens Report on the State of GMOs – False Promises, Failed Technologies:
http://www.monsanto.no/index.php/en/leisure/books/180-the-gmo-emperor-has-no-clothes-a-global-citizens-report-on-the-state-of-gmos-false-promises-failed-technologies
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More studies on Glyphosate, the main ingredience in the herbicide Roundup:
Now Glyphosate found in people’s urine:
http://www.gmwatch.eu/component/content/article/13631
Here is another on Roundup
Roundup Diluted by 450-Fold is Still Toxic to DNA:
http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/research-roundup-diluted-450-fold-still-toxic-dna
Oooops!
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Tore,
Those are impressively hysterical links; I wish I hadn’t looked, and don’t expect me to read the whole things. Is the “urine” thing supposed to be scary or silly? Of COURSE if someone gets glyphosate in their bloodstream it will come out in the urine: that’s what urine is FOR. In fact, other toxic chemicals that you can expect to find in urine include urea, chloride, and all sorts of other things. But, as I recall, glyphosate is not absorbed very well from the gut, nor would I expect it to pass into mammalian cells very much, so “toxicity to DNA” is pretty moot. Wasn’t the “human cell line DNA damage” thing already flogged to death in https://biofortified.org/2012/02/cells-in-a-petri-dish-are-not-people-and-experiments-with-cells-can-easily-give-the-wrong-answers/
Even were these articles more professional, and even if the underlying research is done properly, studies can occasionally produce a sort of “false positive.” That is why people shouldn’t rely on isolated spurious studies, and replication is so important. This explains it pretty well:
http://xkcd.com/882/
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According to the featured article by Jill Richardson, a whopping $7.4 billion flowed from big corporations to agricultural research in 2006―an astounding amount that’s compounded by the fact that, in 2005, a third of agricultural scientists also reported consulting for private industry.
Most flowing of course thru the University Ag programs.
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2012/06/16/monsanto-funding-future-farmers.aspx?e_cid=20120616_DNL_artNew_2
and you trust College Extension programs, unbelievable.
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Andrew, before you discount the expertise of public scientists, you must consider the fact that the vast majority of their funding still comes from public sources. I responded to Jill’s claims in a comment here, which was completely ignored by her. You are rejecting conclusions that you don’t like because of your perception that these conclusions are simply bought by the highest bidder. An alternate conclusion is that maybe they are correct. Try not to figure out what to believe based on how much money an organization has, but instead what the evidence says. If you reject the evidence based solely on who might profit by something being true, you are no better than someone who has actually had their opinion bought-out by a corporation. Money does not determine the nature of reality.
I note an irony that you speak of scientific sources that can be trusted – and yet you link to Mercola?
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A nice review on glyphosate and mineral uptake was published in October 2012 by non-industry scientists.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3479986/
The abstract: “Claims have been made recently that glyphosate-resistant (GR) crops sometimes have mineral deficiencies and increased plant disease. This review evaluates the literature that is germane to these claims. Our conclusions are: (1) although there is conflicting literature on the effects of glyphosate on mineral nutrition on GR crops, most of the literature indicates that mineral nutrition in GR crops is not affected by either the GR trait or by application of glyphosate; (2) most of the available data support the view that neither the GR transgenes nor glyphosate use in GR crops increases crop disease; and (3) yield data on GR crops do not support the hypotheses that there are substantive mineral nutrition or disease problems that are specific to GR crops.”
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DEFENDING CHIROPRACTORS,NATUROPATHS, NUTRITIONISTS
Thank Everyone for the education. I am a chiropractor/acupuncturist/herbalist who worked with Tim Carpenter at Hydrogardens,Inc in Colorado Springs under a quarter acre of glass.
We used our own AA spectrophotometer for leaf and water analysis for the over 800 tomato and cucumber growers nationwide we sold nutrient formula to. Our system was proposed by NASA for use on the International Space Station with a grant from Westinghouse and GE to test their multivapor light bulbs. We were the authority.
I can testify from personal experience that Mn will accumulate around a root system and NOT be transported to leaves if there is inadequate sunlight or cooler temperatures. This was confirmed in 80 samples. In the winter we lowered our commercial fertilizer Mn concentrations for better yields. It is toxic in moderate concentrations. I produced over 100,000 lbs of commercial tomatoes in an 11,000 sq ft greenhouse using hydroponics. One of our greenhouses produced 21,000 lbs per plant, highest yield in the world, 1974.I also worked for Instrumentation Labs, MA and instructed NIH and folks from the Atomic Energy Commission on how to operate AA’s. I studied soil science at the University of Vermont so I understand exchange sites and clay x-ray analysis.
The gentleman(using the term loosely)above making attacks on the dedicated healthcare professionals(naturopaths, chiropractors and nutritionists) is unjustified. He certainly has no medical credentials, just an inflated opinion of himself. I am proud to be a chiropractor with a Chinese medical degree and a researcher for the largest Oriental Medical Journal in America, and Natural Standard, the Harvard-UCLA medical database that’s probably used by his own doctor.I believe an apology is in order. There are quacks in every profession. People have lost the ability to think for themselves and to debate. The authoritarians are everywhere!
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Even so, a chiropractor is not a scientist… unless they are also coincidentally a scientist. That was Ewan’s criticism.
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Man, I really had to dig to figure out where I was insulting anyone to the extent it required an all caps defense.
Chiropracty is quackery. Sorry. I don’t care if you have a degree in it. At the very foundation it is based on utterly unscientific principles and magical thinking. Likewise acupuncture. So congratulations, you self identify as a quack on two fronts. Excellent.
As a side note, if my doctor is using Natural standard for anything regarding my treatment I’ll kick him to the sideline and find a doctor who isn’t vested in quackery. Pretty sure he won’t be though, given that any time he proposes a treatment plan my doctor will supply me with the actual medical/scientific literature dealing with it so I can make an informed decision.
Hate to, y’know, burst your bubble… but if you’re a chiropractor/acupuncturist/herbalist… neither do you. I on the other hand don’t claim to have any medical credentials, so I’ll go ahead and claim the win there on the grounds that you’re impersonating a medical professional.
This may be the case. In acupuncture/chiropracty however the Venn diagram of quacks and people in the profession is a single circle. (I don’t doubt that some of the PT side of chiropracty works, because, y’know, it’s PT… but then… call yourself a Physical Therapist…)
(one might note that had anyone on the list claimed to be a soil scientist I wouldn’t have mocked that particular signature… shurely one would list the pertinent profession/professional qualification)
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