We Need A Bridge Of Understanding

Series:  The Benevolent Side of GMOs 

Note:  The original title to this post was Progress Can Be A Real Quagmire

Today I present another plot twist in the strange – or refreshing (depending on whose side you’re on) story of how I, a former anti-GMO blogger, moderated my views in the course of one month.  If you’re new to this tale, these posts will bring you up to date:  Science Is Laughing At Us,  How To Temper An Anti-GMO Blogger  and My Conversation With a Scientist, Part One.

Since late March, 2013, Dr. Kevin Folta, University of Florida, molecular biologist, and I have been exchanging emails.  After much discourse, a handful of prickly comments in bold caps, some pleading and a lot of really good information, I have something in common with Mark Lynas – I discovered science!  (At one time I wanted to punch Lynas in the face.  Now I want to throw him a high five.)

As this monumental transformation was happening, Folta expressed an interest in having me answer some of his questions, 12 of them to be exact, the idea being to understand the movement’s point of view.  What drives an anti-GMO blogger?  Why do I feel the way I do?  Questions like that.  Folta had this crazy idea that perhaps a bridge could be built between the two worlds.

Now if your bent is anti-GMO, you might be wondering, why does science care a hoot what we think?  Science is laughing at us – you said it yourself, Sleuth4Health.  My answer is this:  science cares because it wants to understand our motivations, our concerns, our fears so it can further itself – unfettered.  We are gaining a lot of power in this movement and due to the well-meaning but dare I say, misinformed actions of some powerful spokespeople,  science is not experiencing the freedom of expansion that the most promising of GMO research not only deserves but requires.  In other words, the anti-GMO movement is getting in the way of progress.

Progress can be a real quagmire.  Please bare with me as I digress to illustrate a point.  I will use the ipod as an example – that little white piece of plastic the size of an index card that single-handedly revolutionized the music industry.  Now, I personally didn’t welcome the ipod with open arms because I had just produced a CD of mostly my own original music (Julia Korena, 2005) at the very time CDs became obsolete.  It took me several years to use an ipod without being upset.  My prejudice got in the way of my accepting ipods.  Today, I can’t imagine not having an ipod.  I even have a flash drive-sized mp3 player that clips to my shirt when I run – and I can adjust the tempo on it!  Coolest little thing.

So, getting back on topic now, building a bridge between the science and anti-GMO worlds is a matter of understanding where both entities are coming from, and perhaps, overcoming some prejudice.  I believe that was what Folta intended when he posed his 12 questions to me.  So, about the same time that I published Science Is Laughing At Us, Folta published Understanding Opposing Views:  A Q & A with Julie Kay (Julie Kay = Sleuth4Health) on his blog Illumination.

For all the anti-GMO folks who are still reading, and I really, really hope you are, you will find your motivations, your concerns, more or less (I tried to represent!) respectfully treated on a mainstream science website – and a very plucky one at that.  I may not have covered everything in perfect accordance with what every member of the movement would say, but I tried to get at the root of the issue.  Please add to the conversation if you feel I missed something!

Now, if you visit Folta’s blog, I must issue a stern warning:  Other than on this one post, he does NOT go easy on GMO naysayers so you may take offense to some or most of his posts, but, at the end of the day the goal here is to build a Bridge of Understanding over a Sea of Discord, right?

To conclude, I’d like to add that I know the implications of GMOs are much, MUCH broader reaching than are the implications of the ipod.  And yes, science should be prudent because of what is at stake.  On the other hand, think of how many revolutionary technologies have, in the course of history, made our lives much, much better.
~JuleeK@Sleuth4Health

Still to Come:  My Conversation With a Scientist continues and Scientific Reports For Dummies.

Updated 4/30

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My Conversation With a Scientist: Part One

Series:  The Benevolent Side of GMOs 

I promised that the science was coming and here it is!  If you just came to Sleuth4Health or haven’t been here for awhile, I recommend that you read the last two posts so you know what is happening with my new series called The Benevolent Side of GMOs.

I begin with two questions I posed to Dr. Folta early on in our emails, very basic questions about bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) followed by glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup which is used on Roundup Ready crops.  I believe these to be some of the most maligned, detested and feared words in the anti-GMO vernacular.

In the anti-GMO world we hear that Bt splits open the guts of insects and that it could very well be doing the same to us when we eat food from a Bt crop – causing, among other things,  leaky guy syndrome, which could in turn be a reason for the increase in life-threatening food allergies, especially among children.

These food allergies can be pretty scary and this is where I do very much sympathize with parents who have an allergic child, and why Bt might be thought to be a culprit, even if it is not the real culprit.  I teach in a public school and there are several staff members in the building who have EpiPen training (epinephrine is used to treat or avoid the onset of anaphylactic shock).   If a highly allergic student eats something they shouldn’t, we must be ready.  I get stacks of documents about these student allergies every year.  They have increased dramatically even in the last decade.

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S4H:   How is Bt active in insects but not in humans?  What if the ‘dose’ in humans were extrapolated to mimic the same ratio the corn borers get when they bite Bt corn?

Folta:  This is the absolute miracle of Bt.  It is a small peptide, a little chain of amino acids.  In order to be active it has to be cleaved by an enzyme (which only certain insects have). Once active, it binds to specific receptors in the larval gut.  The receptors bind like a lock and key.  It is remarkably specific.  Once bound, the receptors cluster and form a pore.  The pore allows contents of the gut to mix with the body cavity and the insect larvae dies.

Humans do not have the receptors at all.  Even if they did, the mechanism is so specific that the Bt peptide that affects moth larvae does not work on beetles, and vice versa.  It is amazingly specific.

In the guts of humans or other animals the Bt peptide is just another peptide.  It is digested in the stomach and broken down into amino acids.   Even if the dose were increased to straight Bt, nothing would be expected to happen, at least in terms of how it affects the larvae.

Bt has been used in organic cultivation for a long time and has been studied in depth for over 60 years.  No evidence of harm on animals. Reports that claim this are usually just in tissue culture cells, which are not a suitable proxy for an animal system.

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Ok, so now we move on to the glyphosate, or Roundup question.  In addition to learning a bit about how Roundup Ready crops work, I received a bonus fact which really surprised me. The crop duster, (mentioned in this question, and also on my “Why Do I Care So Much?” page) which I mistakenly thought was dropping Roundup all over a corn field, was likely dropping a MUCH worse pesticide.  And now the shocker:  it would not drop pesticide on to a Bt corn field because it would not be necessary.  Wow!

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S4H:  For the sake of my question, I’ll assume that eating RR (Roundup Ready) soy, corn, cotton, rapeseed (canola), all of it, is safe.  But how is it that the application of Roundup on the crops is also safe?  I’ve been next to an Iowa cornfield when that stuff came pouring out of a crop duster and it’s some pretty strong stuff.  My breathing got shallow because my lungs were super irritated.  My eyes burned… and hours afterward, the Roundup “scent” still hung in the air and I still experienced irritation and found it uncomfortable to breathe deeply.  I can’t imagine living next to that.  I was just passing through.

Folta:  That’s interesting.  Roundup is usually applied by tractors because specific applicators are used to limit dispersal.  You want the active ingredient evenly applied on the soil.  It is applied early when seeds germinate and then maybe a few weeks later.  The idea is to get crops to out compete the weeds.  It is not applied during the food production window.  

The stuff is pretty safe too.  Sure, the difference between medicine and poison is dosage, but all things considered it is relatively inert.  It works again in a specific fashion.  It binds an enzyme in plants needed for amino acid synthesis.  If the enzyme is blocked, no proteins, plant dies.  Again, this is a specific interaction.  The enzyme (call it EPSPS) has been extensively studied for its interaction with glyphosate (Roundup’s active ingredient). 

Bacteria have an enzyme that does the same exact thing in amino acid synthesis– but it does not bind glyphosate. You see where this goes… the bacterial one is installed in plants.  It does the same job, but is unaffected by glyphosate.  The plant lives through the chemical treatment.  Pretty cool. 

My guess is that you got a lung-full of a pesticide.  The Neonictinoids, organophosphates, etc are just awful.  

In any conventionally-grown corn field, during ear-set the spray planes go back and forth to the airport, dumping thousands of pounds of pesticides on to corn while it is on the plant.  It is just awful to see.

 They do not fly over the Bt field.  (The bold is a S4H edit, for emphasis.)

Just seeing this makes me wonder how any environmentalist could hate this technology. 

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My Conversation With a Scientist, Part One ends here.  I think these two answers are HUGE and deserve their place at the head of the pack.  Notice also that Folta implicates the neonicotinoids, (allegedly linked to the bee die-offs), as possibly being what irritated my lungs and eyes that day I strolled along an Iowa corn field.  He doesn’t like them either!   ~JuleeK@Sleuth4Health

5/5/2013 update:  The website biofortified.org includes a subheading called GENERA, which stands for GENetic Engineering Risk Atlas.  This is THE place to go for mainstream science around the topic of GE plants.  Both public and privately funded research is included.

Down the Pike:  My Conversation With a Scientist continues. Watch for  Scientific Reports for Dummies.

 

How to temper an anti-GMO blogger: My story

Series:  The Benevolent Side of GMOs

My last post marks the beginning of and introduction to my new series about the Benevolent Side of GMOs.  In this post, I’m telling my story, the story of exactly how I went from dogmatic, card-carrying member of the anti-GMO movement to someone who has taken a step back and said hold on, who and what am I going to believe?

I started poking around the movement back in September, 2012, and launched Sleuth4Health right after I first learned what GMOs were.  At first I thought I would take a balanced approach and present both sides but that didn’t last long.  I was outraged and out to educate the world.  My archives tell the story.  Hook, line and sinker, I bought into the anti-GMO movement.

Early on in my participation, I began to notice that while the movement was long on rhetoric, it was short on reliable information.  There were videos and lots of literature, but much of the content was repeated over and over and the sources, again, did not appear to come from mainstream science.   The few reports that were cited also came across as fringe to me,  and I wasn’t surprised that mainstream science didn’t stand behind those either (I will talk about some of these reports in later posts).

This was a realization that I ignored, for the most part, but it festered beneath the surface and would whisper in my ear when I came across something really silly, like a propaganda video or graphic, of which there is no shortage of in the movement.

Sure, a university scientist would be quoted here or there, but it seemed to me that these scientists were also a bit fringe, either because maybe they were retired and hadn’t published in a long, long time or because their strong views were just that, views.  Again, I was still a believer, still committed to the movement, but these, lets call them uncertainties, were adding up and they were bothering me.

One day I stumbled upon a blog called Random Rationality and specifically, a post titled The Lowdown on GMOs.   Authored by Janabe Fourat, it was a Q and A with a plant scientist about transgenic technology, a Ph.D. who currently researches in the field in a university.  Curiosity got the best of me, as it so often does, and I jumped in with both feet, as they say.  I sort of knew, honestly, at first sight of what I read on that fateful day in March, that it was going to change me, but outwardly I remained steadfast.

Before I started reading that blog post, I assumed that there was big controversy about GMOs in the science community, that the whole debate was heating up across the country’s universities because of the growing hullabaloo and all the evidence of harm caused by GMOs.  Surely there were university biologists solidly in the anti-GMO camp, bantering with their pro-GMO colleagues daily over bagels and coffee from a campus kiosk.  Instead, I found words that said, in effect, there is no debate whatsoever in plant molecular biology and crop science. No debate whatsoever.  GMOs are safe.  Cómo?!

After I got over my shock, I found that I was aggravated.  The nerve!  I posted comments on the blog, questions actually, about what I had heard was unsafe or wrong with GMOs, and wasn’t surprised to get a comment back from Fourat, the blogger.  But after a day or two passed, the scientist who had been interviewed, Dr. Kevin Folta from the University of Florida, contacted me directly and in a slightly snarky way, wanted to set me straight.  Yes, he came across a bit surly and sharp-tongued but I immediately sensed his deep frustration as a scientist.  He was doing comment battle with a lot of folks that day, much of it mud-slinging, name-calling and just plain ugly, but I still paid attention because it was clear he knew what he was talking about.  (And hey, if you want some entertainment, check out the comments on Fourat’s post!)

I was floored, and impressed, frankly, that this UF Gator horticultural sciences department chair would take the time to direct a message at me.  As I looked at all the comments on Fourat’s blog and how many of them Folta had also participated in, trying to be the voice of reason, I saw that he generously offered his email address to anyone who wanted to ask him questions about GMOs.  The only caveat was that science be the chosen language.  Well, I did, indeed, have questions so I boldly went where no anti-GMOer has gone before.  I emailed him and so began my conversations with Kevin Folta.

For about a month now, he and I have been emailing back and forth.  It has mostly been in the form of me asking questions and him providing answers.  He has taught me a lot, challenged my way of thinking on this issue, and ultimately, has been the catalyst for my, well, my almost one-eighty about GMOs.  Everything he has said has held up as I’ve done my own research.

Folta loves science and it is clearly his passion.  Make no mistake – if you step on the hallowed ground of science, he’ll step on the hallowed ground of you and it will smart a little.  As I said in my last post, when I published the infamous corn report, I got a cyber-lashing.  But at the end of the day, there was and is mutual respect.

When he is not pounding his fist in the name of science, and even sometimes when he is, Kevin Folta is down to earth, funny and likeable.   Most surprising were some of his views.  For example, he is as disgusted as any of us are with what happens in CAFOs (confined animal feeding operations) and was hard-core vegetarian for 16 years.  He believes in fewer inputs for crops, not more, and wants to use his expertise to help make this a reality.   He enjoys sharing his knowledge at organic co-ops, volunteering his time to speak at retirement homes or with youth about biology, crop domestication or even climate change.  Most importantly for this blog, he thinks GMOs, can truly help the world.  He does NOT work for Monsanto or any other similar corporation.

Kevin Folta, Plant Molecular Biology

In the next several posts, you’ll get to know Dr. Folta too.  He is a far cry from the evil corporate scientist many of us have come to believe is the face of GMOs.

Coming soon:  what the science really says.

~JuleeK@Sleuth4Health

Note:  This post was updated on 4/28.

Science Is Laughing At Us

Ok readers.  It is time to come clean about something that is deeply troubling to me.  I have read.  I have learned.  I have talked to a real scientist.  I have even tried to get past the abstract and decipher scientific jargon in a report (epic fail).  I have pondered. I have soul searched.  I have changed.

Here it is:  science is laughing at us.

I put the statement in bold and used it as a title for this post because I want it to be seen and known.  Science sees us as a joke.  The “us” I am referring to are the folks behind the anti-GMO movement.  The movement is gaining momentum in the US right now and I have been solidly in the camp of banner waving followers but my views are starting to moderate because of what I am learning.

Let me be clear about one thing.  By science, I do not mean the biotech industry or any industry.  I do not mean Monsanto, DuPont, Dow or any of those huge corporations.  I mean pure science for the purpose of science.  The kind that is studied and practiced at  institutions of higher learning where people get doctorates and do cutting edge research.  Of course, industry may apply the research but what I’m getting at is that the science I’m talking about does not have a monetary agenda.  It is not biased.  If it were biased, it could not be science.

There is a great divide going on, between science and – let’s call it non-science.  Oh sure, there has always been contention in this arena but today, this contention affects whole populations and the livelihood of individuals.  It affects food, land and water.  It affects politics, policies and very important decisions.  Scientists are laughing at us – but they’re also crying because movements like this wield a lot of power and well meaning folks can, unbeknownst, do more harm than good.

Now I’ll get specific and to the point of this post.   Scientific evidence, the real kind, the kind that is peer-reviewed and published in respectable journals does NOT show harm from eating genetically modified food.  Let me repeat:  SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE DOES NOT SHOW HARM FROM EATING GENETICALLY MODIFIED FOOD. Science tells us that the benefits outweigh the risks.

I can’t put it any simpler than that.  I am not saying that there are not problems with the technology.  There are many, as with any technology, and no one says it is perfect in its present state but the bottom line is, the genetic engineering of crops and eating food from those crops is not, in and of itself, unsafe, and we can push against it all we want but I promise you this – it is not going anywhere.  Try to stop progress!

With this post, I begin a new series on Sleuth4Health.  It will look at a whole other side of genetic engineering.  I will back up the strong claims I made in the paragraphs above.  I will provide evidence, real evidence, and will post conversations with a scientist, one who works directly with transgenics, is not a Monsanto employee and who cares about the earth and the future of mankind.  I will post other information gleaned from various media and whatever else I can find.  I will expose the problems with transgenics as well, but they will be based on evidence – not just someones’s ideas.  I will learn right along with you all.

Does all this mean that I’m going to rush to the store and buy boxes of processed, GMO laden food?  Certainly not!  I will still eat organic, whole foods as often as possible.  It is my choice to do that.  And no doubt, my visceral response to GMOs will take a lot longer to change than my intellectual one.  But I’m growing, learning and changing and that is always a good thing.

Why am I doing this?  Have I gone over to the dark side?  Well, I’m doing this because I have to if I want to look at myself in the mirror.  I want to be a beacon of truth.  I can not, in good conscience, continue to spread propaganda.

The tipping point for my “conversion” came from the recent corn report that went viral worldwide.   The report was said to be independently conducted by a major food company at the request of a grower.  (Read more here at ProfitProAg.com.) Originally circulated by the organization Moms Across America, the report claimed shocking differences between the nutritional value of conventional and GM corn and even claimed that GM corn was toxic.  I remember first seeing the report and, truth be known, questioned its validity, but in my eagerness to be a good soldier for the movement, I immediately published it on my blog.

Well guess what?   I got spanked by a scientist and you know, I deserved it.  The report is bogus, and apparently, this would be apparent to any undergrad who passed Chemistry 101.  I will post more about why this report is bogus in the near future but for now you can revisit my post:   (Nutrients in GMO Corn vs. non-GMO Corn), which I updated with correct information at a later date.

Bottom line:  This is not a movement that I can take pride in belonging to anymore.  I want to base my opinions on facts, not fallacies.  I named my blog Sleuth4Health.  Here is one definition for sleuth:  to carry out a search or investigation in the manner of a detective.  Well, that is what I am doing, will continue to do, and I don’t know where it will lead but I must follow the evidence, as any good inspector would do.

On the other hand, I’m still in full support of labeling – mandatory labeling, voluntary labeling, any kind of labeling (beyond what is currently available, which isn’t much).  What I’d really like is real education for the masses on this topic so we may all know what is true and what is not and make the appropriate choices for ourselves and for our families.

And meanwhile,  I am still very much committed to writing about and exposing real  toxins – whether in our food, environment, or elsewhere.  I will continue to post relevant information on that front.

I just don’t want to bark up the wrong tree.

~Julie@Sleuth4Health

Email:  sleuth4health@gmail.com

Two Ironies

Khaz/Flickr

Something rather ironic is happening.  Just as some US food retailers are beginning to pledge to carry non-GMO foods, grocery chains in the UK are telling their customers that they can no longer insure that chicken feed is free of GMOs.  According to  Supply Management, The UK grocery store chain Tesco has recently made this announcement.  See article.

Europe, in general, has rejected GMO crops since 1998 but there are signs that the EU is beginning to relax its stance on this as new trade treaty negotiations between the US and the EU seek to end GMO crop restrictions throughout Europe.  All the while in the US consumers are just waking up to GMOs and a strong anti-GMO movement is finding its voice.  Another irony.  How will it all shake out?

We do tend to lag behind Europe in fashion, culture and probably much else.  I remember being in Tübingen, Germany in 1988 and seeing firsthand a comprehensive recycling program that equally baffled, intimidated and fascinated me.  I barely knew what recycling meant in 1988.  My friend and hostess scolded me if I tried to throw a coffee filter away.  Every piece of garbage had its place and there was a lot of explaining to do if I filled up her garbage pail, which was the size of a can of Folgers, more than once per week.  It was my first experience with a smelly, compost bowl.  Today, I fill up a smelly, compost bowl daily.

So if Europe is a harbinger of our GMO future, even if the anti-GMO movement takes hold in the US, could it all be for naught because a decade from now everything will swing back to GMO anyway?

How much power do consumers really have over this?  Sure, we can boycott products, lobby for labeling laws and vote with our pocketbook, but how realistic is that in the long run?  And what do economically disadvantage folks do, the ones who can’t afford organic food?  Are they going to care if food is GMO or not if labeling laws are passed?

I’m asking more questions than I’m answering.  I just checked out a book from the library called Tomorrow’s Table: Organic Farming, Genetics, and the Future of Food by Pamela C. Ronald.  It was recommended to me by another blogger.  Kind of weird to see the words organic and genetics in the same title.  Maybe it will provide me the answers I seek.  I would especially welcome comments from anyone who has read this book.  ~JuleeK@Sleuth4Health

Colony Collapse Disorder Is A Fraud: Pesticides Cause Bee Die-Offs

Callum Hampson/Flickr

Here is an interesting spin on the whole issue of bee die offs and Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD).  This article claims that CCD is a fraudulent name put out there by big companies like Bayer to confuse and divert attention from the real culprit responsible for bee deaths – neonicotinoids, which, according to Gaia Health, was an issue they started reporting on a decade ago.   In other words, CCD is a way to invent a new ‘mystery’ around why bees are dying, rather than just zeroing in on the real cause.  The article compares this tactic to what is being done in the field of climate change.

It’s an interesting point of view and one I’ve never heard before.  I’ve always just put Colony Collapse Disorder in the same category as bee die-off.  For me, it’s really a matter of semantics.

Here is the article from Gaia Health.

For more information about the seriousness of bee die offs and how our food supply will be directly affected, see this article in Pittsburg’s Trib Life:  Bee die-off a threat to US food supply.

~JuleeK@Sleuth4Health

It’s Time to Re-Focus the GMO Debate

The Fanning Mill

Dear friends (anti-GMO and pro-GMO),

I don’t know about you, but I’m getting tired of the debate over genetically modified crops and food. Tired of the constant claim and counter-claim, the hyperbole, the exaggerations, the fear-mongering, the mis-quotes, the lack of context, the narrow perspectives, the sniping and snarking, the name-calling, the disrespect – all of it. (I generally try to stay polite, but I’ve engaged in some of it, too, I’ll admit – very few of us can claim to be immune, I believe).

It’s getting to the point where it’s almost impossible to broach the subject with someone new without needing to peel back layer after layer of assumed prejudices before a reasonable conversation can take place. Too many people have come to a place, it appears, where they’ll only pay attention to information that supports their own viewpoint – anything that is slightly off-script is immediately considered…

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