#Moms4GMOs

Commentary 1 Minute

I had the pleasure of working with Kavin Senapathy, Alison Bernstein, and Layla Katiraee (who is also a Biofortified Blog author) this past week on an open letter from us science moms to the celebrity moms who are speaking out in support of mandatory GMO labeling. The letter is published at Grounded Parents. I hope you’ll take a look at our letter and consider adding your voice, whether you’re a mom, dad, or not a parent at all. You can use hashtag #Moms4GMOs to add your own message on social media.

Scientist and Advocate Moms to Celeb Moms: Weigh GMO Food with Facts Not Fear

Collage created by Kavin Senapathy
Collage created by Kavin Senapathy.

Published by Anastasia Bodnar

Anastasia is a science communicator and multidisciplinary risk analyst with a career in federal service. She has a PhD in plant genetics and sustainable agriculture from Iowa State University. Anastasia's writing with SciMoms is conducted in her personal capacity, and the views expressed do not represent the views of the USDA.

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35 thoughts on “#Moms4GMOs”

    1. If you have any relevant claims try posting them here. I would be interested in just how quickly they will be proved incorrect.

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      1. Why should I bother? I’ve posted dozens of them on the Smoking Gun. If you can prove them incorrect here, you can prove them incorrect there. Just go to my site like any normal human being and write your comments. I’ll publish and answer all of them, guaranteed.

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      3. Why would anybody go to your site? I don’t know why I still do. You won’t allow “pro-GMO” comments (even though they seem to be your only readers). Your comments all have to be moderated. Then you selectively publish.
        This is clearly a far more productive place to have a discussion, because you aren’t in charge of who talks, what they say, or the pace of the conversation.
        Mike W

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    2. what a cute little blog. Can I take an excerpt?
      “Not even a half-truth—a flat-out lie this time. If you eat GMO food, you have a roughly nine-out-of-ten chance of eating RoundUp.”
      now, now Derek. You have ZERO chance of eating Roundup. You may have a 9 out of 10 chance of eating micrograms of glyphosate, but that is not the same as eating Roundup.
      I also like this one:
      “Well, endocrinologists have proved that levels as low as one part per million (OR LESS!) can seriously affect hormones that are essential to your health, provoking many different chronic diseases ESPECIALLY IN YOUNG CHILDREN!”
      Cute. You seem to have missed a citation in there.
      Or, my personal favorite:
      ““Pants on fire” AGAIN! If the beets were sprayed with RoundUp, it has RoundUp in it!”
      No, Derek. Sucrose is sucrose. C12H22O11. There is no “roundup” in it. Non-GM beet or GM beet yields an identical substance after processing.

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      1. Any comments on a post that does not appear on this site will be re-posted (and answered) on the Smoking Gun. Scared to go on my site, or what?

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      2. Not scared, logical. I do not want to lend any credibillity to your site by clicking on it. Plus it is entertaining to read the complete refutations on this site as they always appear quickly when you post here. Thanks Michael.

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      3. And thanks to the women who are trying to spread a bit of truth at less than movie star salaries.

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      10. And my answer’s now here:
        I’ve got good and bad news for you. Th good news is that at least,
        unlike many others, you’ve had the balls to come to my site. The bad
        side is, you’re going to wish you hadn’t.
        1. LD stands for
        Lethal Dose. LD is a measure of ACUTE toxicity. Nobody, but nobody,
        least of all me, ever accused Glyphosate OR Roundup of being ACUTELY
        toxic (except at high doses). What we’re talking about if we’re talking
        endocrine disruption (which I am) is CHRONIC toxicity If you think the
        measure is relevant here, you just proved your total ignorance of
        elementary toxicology.
        2. That is sixteenth-century bullshit as
        I’ve already proved on my site. Can’t keep repeating myself–I have a
        life, even if you don’t.
        3. Here you prove yourself totally
        ignorant of endocrinology. Just read the articles in Endocrine Reviews
        (if you can understand them, which I doubt) cited in Unsafe at any Dose?
        Then come back and tell not just me, but the world’s top review of
        endocrinology, that we’re clueless.
        Take-home message: Monsantoites claim to know science But they don’t.
        Autobiographical
        note: It was not neophobia, or any other kind of fear, of science,
        GMOs or anything else, or hatred of big corporations (though I certainly
        don’t like them) or ignorance, or reading Dr. Mercola, or anything else
        that turned me against GMOs–it was MONSANTOITE BAD SCIENCE.

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      11. “What we’re talking about if we’re talking
        endocrine disruption (which I am) is CHRONIC toxicity If you think the
        measure is relevant here, you just proved your total ignorance of
        elementary toxicology.”
        name one chemical that has a non monotonic dose relationship? Loser.
        “I’ve already proved on my site.”
        So funny, just like bigfoot researcher have proven that bigfoot lives. You are so sad.
        Can you tell us about the chemtrails now, or how 911 was an inside job? Illuminati?
        “Unsafe at any Dose?”
        You are a totall idiot, even uranium is safe at a low dose.

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      13. Who would want to go to your conspiracy loon site? I mean like really, even your infographic is wrong…Try again nutter.

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      15. LOL, illiterate, so funny.
        Lets see.
        Monsanto didn’t get into Ag seed till 1960, yet you claim that it was 1930.
        You also have a pic of a fire retardant drop above the Agent Orange segment.
        And there is so much else wrong with it, it makes my head hurt.

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      16. You’re not even talking about my work but something I reposted as a favor for someone else. I didn’t say the things in it and I’m not responsible for its content. You just went on my site and showed you didn’t understand thing one I was talking about, so take my advice and don’t display your ignorance here or there.

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      20. No, I don’t think so. You could have just as easily posted here, but you’re attempting to drive traffic to your blog. Sorry, I won’t feed your ego, it seems to be large enough already.

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      21. Done as soon as asked (almost):
        Assuming his portrait is a faithful one, Mike is at least as cute as my blog–cuter, I’d say. So here’s the answers.
        1. If you can figure out what this is all about, let me know. Roundup
        is what is sprayed on most corn crops, and RoundUp contains
        glyphosate–I used the first term rather than the second in case the
        Celeb Moms never heard of glyphosate. What is stunning about this is
        that Mike admits that “You may have a 9 out of
        10 chance of eating micrograms of glyphosate.” Thanks, Mike. I rest my
        case.
        2. Just go read my post Unsafe At Any Dose? and references therein (or
        any respectable work on endocrinology if it comes to that). I removed
        all citations, theirs and mine, from the “Celeb Moms” post because it
        was unfair to post only one lot and confusing to post both. As regular
        readers know, all important references on my site are cited. But
        Monsantoites are lazy and expect their opponents to do all the work.
        3. “Sugar beets
        grow very slowly. Wild grasses and weeds are usually much faster and
        compete for light, water and nutrients. Without massive weed control,
        young sugar beet plants hardly are able to establish themselves.
        Compared with other crops, they require the most intensive and frequent
        use of weed control products…Normally, only three applications of
        herbicides are necessary, which, as a rule, contain four to seven
        different active ingredients.”
        “[The process of extracting the juice] also collects a
        lot of other chemicals from the flesh of the sugar beet…The juice must now be
        cleaned up before it can be used for sugar production. This is done by a
        process known as carbonatation where small clumps of chalk are grown in the
        juice. The clumps, as they form, collect A LOT of the non-sugars so that by
        filtering out the chalk one also takes out the non-sugars”.
        “A lot” is NOT all, even though the pro-industry piece I cite tries to
        suggest that. Residues of as little as a few parts PER BILLION can
        disrupt the endocrine system, especially in development.
        So, Mike, you can answer my answers without feeding my ego, vast as I’m sure that is.

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      22. 1) yep, I admitted you may get, and I’ll say this again slowly, MICROgrams. You know, about the same amount as you would get of MERCURY in a serving of tuna fish. Wow, scary. Glyphosate is far less toxic than mercury, Tylenol, caffeine, and a host of other substances we ingest.
        2) I’m not going back to your blog.
        3) No one denied that they spray the beets. However, you’ve given a description of the process before the sugar is refined out. I’ll say it again, since you’re being deliberately deceptive. Sucrose is C12H22O11, no more and no less, after refinement.
        “Residues of as little as a few parts PER BILLION can disrupt the endocrine system, especially in development”
        No, they can’t. I think I know where you are selecting this information from, and there is a world of difference between cellular effects in vitro and in vivo, I believe your source is from the former and not the latter. The BfR and the FDA ruled out that it is an endocrine disruptor.

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      23. Assertion is not proof.
        Fine by me. Stay ignorant.
        “For
        this last stage, the syrup is placed into a very large pan, typically holding
        60 tons or more of sugar syrup. In the pan even more water is boiled off until
        conditions are right for sugar crystals to grow. You may have done something
        like this at school but probably not with sugar because it is difficult to get
        the crystals to grow well. In the factory the workers usually have to add some
        sugar dust to initiate crystal formation. Once the crystals have grown the
        resulting mixture of crystals and mother liquor is spun in centrifuges to
        separate the two, rather like washing is spin dried. The crystals are then
        given a final dry with hot air before being packed and/or stored ready for
        dispatch.”
        This is how they refine beet sugar. Pray explain exactly how any of this gets rid of the chemical residues that will still remain in the sugar. AND don’t forget to explain how I was “deliberately deceptive”.

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      24. And I am guessing here, but I assume that you have no evidence that glyphosate or any other herbicide makes it through the sugar processing stage.
        So who is being deceptive?

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      25. At least as much evidence as you have for saying it doesn’t.
        Okay, fellers. I’m sick of playing whack-a-mole and I have better things to do with my day. By all means keep on popping up but I won’t swat you down before tomorrow.

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      27. If you think it’s me who was whacked, you’re flat out delusional and should be committed.

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      28. 1) assertion of what? There are plenty of reports of residual glyphosate residues in crops as well as the typical amount of mercury in a can of tuna. So, for example, Froot Loops were tested and had a maximum value of 0.12 ppm. A can of canned light Tuna has 0.12 ppm mercury, Albacore is 0.32 ppm. Or, are you attempting to say that mercury is less toxic than glyphosate? I’d love to hear that come out of your mouth.
        2) sorry, I refuse to provide you with hits on your blog, it has nothing to do with ignorance
        3) Here’s where you’re being deliberately deceptive. When the crystals grow, they are SUGAR crystals. All other contaminants stay in solution, you would need a different process to extract glyphosate. BTW, growing sugar crystals isn’t hard, I think it was covered in 6th grade science.

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