No Organisms Left In The Products – Let Alone GM Ones

Today I am reviewing a brief video that packs a punch – titled GMOs and Health Safety, presented May 9 of this year at the UCLA Women’s Health Conference. The speaker is Alan McHughen. an Oxford-educated molecular geneticist with a focus on crop improvement and sustainability.

There are four things I especially appreciate about this video.

1.   It is relatively short and accessible to any non-sciency lay person (which would be humanities-major me.)

2.  Dr. McHughen emphasizes that all the hullabaloo over GMOs in foods is really a moot point because by the time the much maligned ‘just-label-it’ foods hit store shelves, there isn’t anything close to an organism in them let alone a genetically modified one. So yes, all this hysteria that has large sections of the public in a snit is really much ado about nothing.  He says (emphasis mine):

Genetically engineered corn, soybean, cotton, canola, alfalfa, sugar beets – they’re the ones that you’re likely to encounter (in the marketplace).  But the food products that you get from those are things like corn oil, soybean oil, vegetable oil, cottonseed oil, canola oil or sugar from sugar beets – those aren’t genetically modified organisms.  In fact we don’t have GMOs in any of our foods because there are no organisms in any of our food – except maybe pro-biotic yogurts and things but the organisms stay behind.  In fact, even the genetically engineered plants stay behind when you process a corn plant for oil.  You’re removing the DNA and the proteins.  What you get at the end is corn oil which is identicle whether its squeezed out of a genetically engineered corn kernel or a non genetically engineered corn kernel.  When they say 80% of our food contains GMOs, number one:  NONE of our food contains GMOs or even organisms, except probiotics which are not genetically engineered as far as I know.  There are no remnants of the GE process in what is called genetically engineered corn oil.  It is identicle to traditional corn oil.

Folks, this is one of the big reasons the farm and food industry object to labeling, and who can blame them?  The term “GMOs” is misleading as it infers some kind of ingredient, where there is none.  Genetic engineering is a technology, just as is the extremely common mutation breeding, which is way worse in my opinion, but no one seems to care.  I’ll eat a genetically modified product any day.

3.  McHughen reminds us how many farmers worldwide willingly choose to grow the most common varieties of soy, corn and cotton crops using the Roundup Ready and Bt seeds.  Farmers are NOT unwitting victims of Monsanto, as is commonly believed across the web.  They are wise business people who want to make a good living like anyone else – while offering an excellent product to consumers.  They make decisions based on productivity.  And no one, absolutely no one is as concerned about their land as they are.  They’re not going to just blindly poison it.

4.  Somehow, and in a very short time, McHughen touches on many of the lesser known but wide spread benefits derived by GE technology while simultaneously dispelling myth after myth.  He mentions the genetic engineering process used to create insulin, chymosin (used in the making of cheese) and the cystic fibrosis drug dornase alfa.

In closing I’ll admit that McHughen doesn’t paint an entirely rosy picture when it comes to genetic engineering.  He does briefly introduce areas where actual danger could be lurking but more importantly, he underscores the absolutely crucial fact that the fear of our current food supply being somehow tainted or toxic because of GMOs is ERRONEOUS.

No disrespect is intended toward people who are fearful of GMOs, I just ask you to consult respected sources for your information.  Start with GMO Answers, a website where McHughen is a contributor.

Show “The Doctors” Has Hint of Rationality Regarding Glyphosate (Roundup)

Dr. Travis Stork via his twitter account

Earlier this week I was putzing around my house in the afternoon with the TV blaring to keep me company and ABC’s show The Doctors came on.  I’ve always put this show, perhaps mistakenly, in the same category as Dr. Oz, mainly because these types of shows come off, to me anyway, as generally somewhat annoying, dumbed down and clearly targeted to a demographic of which I am not a part (so I’d like to hope, anyway).  I didn’t pay much attention to it until a segment begin to air about glyphosate, the most commonly used herbicide used worldwide (see videos below).

My first thought was, oh, here we go, more Roundup slamming, more Monsanto bashing.  More hysteria.  More fear.  The latest I have heard concerning the ongoing glyphosate saga is that it will cause half our children to have autism by 2025, or something close to that, and other such hyperbole.

Let me be clear, I’m not trying to defend Roundup in this post.  To me, it is a tool farmers and home gardeners use and its benefits outweigh its risks.  That’s it.  I’m not in love with the stuff.  I myself use Roundup, or more often than not, off-brand generic copies of Roundup to spot treat certain pesky weeds in my yard that are difficult to remove any other way, such as when they grow amongst thick, desirable ground covers or are otherwise hard to dig up.  But suffice it to say, I am judicious with my use of Roundup or any other herbicide.

So my sudden focus on the show’s segment about glyphosate was more about the mechanism of how hysteria spreads than the actual topic – if that makes sense (I hope it does.) My interest was piqued – so I watched.

First they mentioned how The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), an agency under the umbrella of the World Health Organization (WHO), recently reported that glyphosate could cause cancer in humans.  It is important to note that never did the report state that it does cause cancer in humans.  See this recent Round Up Risk and Assessment article in the New Yorker for more explanation of the IARC report and its implications.

Unfortunately, to just say something could cause cancer really scares a lot of people who don’t have the science background to understand the mechanism involved, where the data came from, how the conclusion was reached and so forth.

Toxicologist tells it like it is

The first guest was Dr. Donna Farmer, a toxicologist from the Product safety Center at Monsanto.  Her job is to study the safety of Monsanto products.  Specifically, she has studied glyphosate throughout her tenure at the much maligned company.  She calmly informed everyone that she was a mom too and stated that:  “I’ve been a scientist at Monsanto for twenty years and this (glyphosate) has been the molecule that I’ve studied all of those years and I’m absolutely confident of the data behind it”.

She went on to mention a recent German study* (see below for excerpt and commentary) that found NO link between glyphosate and cancer and later adds, “I understand why everyone is concerned.  There is a lot of confusion.  There is a lot of misinformation on the internet but I will tell you, and I mean this very honestly – I am extremely, highly confident in this product, as a mom, and then I can back it up as a scientist.”

Seriously – this woman could be my neighbor.  She isn’t some coy Monsanto lab rat cooking up poison.  I have said many times in this blog that I tend to believe scientists because they are experts in their field, just as I believe my hair stylist, my plumber, my auto mechanic because they too are experts in their field. To be at the doctoral level in any discipline requires years and years upon more years of concentrated study, effort and dogged determination.  It defies logic that after all those years of painstaking work to earn and keep current the highest academic credential, that a scientist would then make stuff up, or hide stuff, or tell bold-faced lies.

Yes, even if this scientist works for Monsanto.  What does one suppose she has done for the past 20 years in her lab?  Research lies and conduct fake experiments?

The whole everyone-who-doesn’t-hate-Monsanto-is-a-shill mentality belongs, in my opinion in the conspiracy theory hall of fame.  I understand that, yes, there have been a handful of crazy, malevolent scientists out there throughout history and bad things have resulted.  But for the most part I don’t equate science with crazy.  Knowledge tends to set one free from the crazy – unless maybe one is mentally ill or something unfortunate like that, but I saw nothing in Farmer that would make me think she were anything other than a highly intelligent, skilled and productive citizen. Bottom line:  Scientists who work for companies are hired because of the knowledge, skill and expertise they can bring to their job.

So Who is the real expert?

Well, then of course the segment had to feature the opposing side, the side that is telling you your sons and daughters are going to all get autism and any and all disease by such and such a date due to glyphosate.  None other than Jeffrey Smith of the Institute for Responsible technology came on the show.  He popped up on screen and gave his spiel about the evils of glyphosate.

It kills me that he is always introduced as some kind of “expert” when, in fact, he has NO science credential whatsoever.  (In fact, a serious case could be made that he has quite unfairly targeted the biotech industry due to his spiritual beliefs, but that’s another post…)

Anyway, vast amounts of unsuspecting folks, including yours truly back before I knew better, have listened to and been highly influenced by this guy and to be sure, most of the audience and even the other cohosts were buying it….

Until Dr. Travis Stork changed direction in the segment by saying he came from a family of farmers and that they all use herbicides and the subtext appeared to me to be that he was absolutely fine with that.  He talked about balancing the benefit versus the harm, adding that there need to be more definitive studies done.

In short, what I gleaned form his comments was that he wasn’t having any of the hype, even as perhaps his cohosts were.  Because of Dr. Stork’s comments, it was the most even-handed treatment of a controversial topic I have yet to see on daytime television. Good for you Travis! He was the one voice of reason on the show.  He admonished everyone to go read the studies for themselves.  Be informed.

The problem with laypeople looking for ‘studies’ on the internet

The only thing he forgot to mention was where to find a legitimate, respected, repeatable, peer reviewed study.  Unfortunately there is a lot of really bad science out there posing as the real deal.  Studies like the infamous Seralini’s tumorous rats fed GMO corn or so-called MIT senior scientist Stephania Seneff’s study linking glyphosate to increases in incidences of autism and other disease, etc., don’t fool the scientists, only the scientifically ignorant!  (See my post Spotting Bad Science For Dummies – Like Me.)

In the broader scientific community, junk science studies are dismissed as trash instantly because of lack of data, lack of repeatability, major problems with methodology, the fact that these types of studies are often published in journals that accept any ol’ study as long as the fee gets paid – and other glaring reasons.  Only the scientifically gullible, the irrational, the conspiracy theorists, the fear-mongers buy that Seralini, Seneff, or countless other junk study authors are legitimate – and then off they go on the internet or other media – making a big fuss and attracting more folks like themselves.

But during this episode of The Doctors, there was rationality in the form of Donna Farmer and Travis Stork.

Common sense still works

I know we all care about health.  I just wish common sense could prevail.   We don’t have to spend half our income on organic food, or maintain a constant vigilance about every last bite that goes in our mouth for fear we are being harmed in some way.

A basic, albeit old-fashioned understanding of nutrition goes a long way:  Choose a variety of foods from all the groups.  Don’t drink too much soda or eat too many sugary desserts.  Don’t smoke.  Temper your drinking.  Pre-packaged snacks, meals, dishes and desserts are quick and easy but likely full of a lot of undesirable ingredients that could be avoided if you made the food from scratch using fresh ingredients as much as possible. Common sense stuff – all of it.

~Julee K/Sleuth4Health

Here are links to the segment on The Doctors that aired on Monday, 5/19.

Does Popular Herbicide Cause Cancer?

Debating the Safety of Popular Herbicide*

Final Thoughts on the Safety of Popular Herbicide

*Excerpt comparing German study with recent IARC study on glyphosate (emphasis mine):

In the opinion of BfR, the classification of glyphosate as “carcinogenic in Group 2A” (probably

carcinogenic to humans) as published in the 20 March 2015 issue of the “Lancet” journal

comes as a surprise, since other evaluations performed by supranational bodies such as the

WHO-Panel of the Joint Meeting of Pesticide residues (JMPR, 2004), and also by national

regulatory agencies such as the U.S.EPA had concluded the contrary, i.e., that glyphosate

was not carcinogenic. Unfortunately, the database on which the IARC evaluation is based is

not known, since a background monograph that is usually produced by IARC following the

evaluation meetings has not yet been released. Therefore, a comprehensive and scientifi-

cally sound consideration of the data and arguments that led to the IARC- conclusion is sim-

ply not possible at the moment.

  Further Reading:

Medical Doctors Weigh In On Glyphosate Claims

Oh No!  GMOs Are Going To Make Everyone Autistic!

The First World Causing Problems

Thanks to The Skeptical Beard for this great post. I share his views.

The Skeptical Beard

Have you ever thought about how lucky you are?

Site traffic tells me that most of you are from very tech-savvy nations. You probably don’t worry about catching deadly diseases or whether you’ll have a roof over your head tonight or where your next meal is coming from. We all have our struggles, but you probably tell people you can’t complain when asked how you’re doing. Some people, not you of course, are so privileged that they even pretend to have ailments like Celiac disease, or they go on starvation diets. How crazy is it that we can afford to choose to suffer?

View original post 960 more words

Another One Bites The Dust (Of Reason)

Bill Nye ‘the science guy’

Well, well, well, Mr. Bill Nye appears to be the latest GMOs-Are-Actually-Pretty-Neat-Come-Lately.  Welcome to the fold, Mr. Nye.  I doubt many science types are surprised that you eventually got here, even if it took you awhile.

Apparently a face-to-face encounter with Monsanto scientists was enough for the science guy to stop questioning the safety, utility and reach of GMOs.   Mr Nye, I fear you will be forever accused of having partaken of Monsanto’s kool-aid, as I was after I visited a Monsanto facility in Hawaii a few years back.  One person went so far as to insinuate that Monsanto paid for my whole Hawaii vacation.  If only!

Glad to see rationality and reason prevail here and it’s well about time. My respect for Nye is in tact.

And – is it just wishful thinking, or is Mother Jones’s Tom Philpott disguising a bit of squirm in this article?

What Did Monsanto Show Bill Nye to Make Him Fall “in Love” With GMOs?

Julee K/Sleuth4Health Related post:  Visit to Monsanto’s Piilani Farm on Maui.seems

Luxury GMOs! Oh boy!

Wine and Chocolate, Wikimedia Commons

Wine and chocolate are to be enjoyed.  Isn’t that just part of living in a privileged society?  I know in my monthly book club it is.  But I also know we take it completely for granted.  We have never asked ourselves what a book club meeting would be like without these two mainstays.

And what could this possibly have to do with GMOs?

 

My favorite website for no-nonsense-spot-on information about GMOs is Biology Fortified.  I have referred to it numerous times here at Sleuth4Health.  The site’s board of directors consists of plant scientists who run a tight ship when it comes to the facts.  The site is building a major database called GENERA (GENetic Engineering Risk Atlas) which consists of public and private studies examining all things transgenic or genetically modified.

I have heard anti-GMO activists cry that Biology Fortified has a pro-GMO agenda, consists of a bunch of shills for the industry, is funded by biotech, Big Ag, chemical companies, blah blah blah, but I recommend not believing that before fact-checking.   With a little digging and a rational mind, it isn’t difficult to realize that this just isn’t true – as long as one stays away from anti-GMO activist websites such as Institute for Responsible Technology, GM Watch, Organic Consumers Association and their many, many cousins.   These sites make wild claims and connect dots that are not connectable.  Information, much of which is outright false, is manipulated and sensationalized to scare the pants off of you and to serve a pretty clear agenda itself.

Below are just some of the messages and scare tactics of anti-GMO Acitivists

~You, poor unsuspecting thing, are being duped by industry!

~Monsanto wants to kill you for profit.

~Big Food is involved in a giant coverup and YOU are the victim.

~Food is not safe.  Your children are at risk!

~GMO technology is messing with God.  It’s not natural.

~GMO contamination will forever alter our crops.  There’s no going back.

~GMOs cause autism, gluten sensitivity, cancer, and, insert ailment here _________.

~Buy organic.  Take lots of supplements, but only ours, because the rest of them are crap.

~We are doomed.

At it’s core, the anti-GM movement has succeeded in creating yet another gigantic conspiracy theory.  And no – this post is not focused on dispelling the above messages, though many earlier posts on this blog may do just that.  I am simply pointing out that it is easy to get sucked into this mindset.  I once believed all of the above and had to learn to stand up to this misinformation, but that is a whole other story – all of which is chronicled over time here on this blog.

And please,  if there is one rumor in the public debate about GMOs that must be squelched, stomped on, eradicated, it is the one that claims anyone who speaks in favor of GMOs is some kind of paid industry stooge under gag orders – afraid to tell the truth for fear of losing a job, thousands of dollars, one’s first born, life or limb.  I speak in favor of GMOs all the time, for free, and I am merely a citizen who wants high quality, affordable food available to me.   Though my ample American belly is full and satisfied, many bellies elsewhere are not  and that distinction is significant when considering transgenic technology and food worldwide.  GM technology is a really cool tool and should be developed.

But even taking all that into consideration, it is still easy to form opinions about what the rest of the world should or should not do about food and hunger when one’s vantage point is from an economically advantaged American soap box.

Or is it so easy?

What if some of our most cherished but taken-for-granted luxury items were threatened?  Products such as premium roasted coffee, rich dark chocolate, wine, fresh-squeezed orange juice?  Would an anti-GMO person change their views in a hurry if  GMOs meant they could afford these things?

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OK so now back to Biofortified.  Many of the contributors are public scientists, meaning their salaries come from public institutions such as state universities or agencies.  (For an ‘illuminating’ comparison of anti-GMO activist agendas vs. public scientist agendas, read “Who Do You Trust?”)

Soooo, with that being said, here is a great article about beneficial GMOs and how they could be a valuable tool for us well fed  types with our lust for the finer things in life.

The author of this article is Steve Savage.  His bio states that for a time, he worked for Du Pont.  At other times he has been a public scientist and now he works independently.  An activist website might claim that because Mr. Savage once worked for Du Pont, he is presently a shill for the industry.  But to my thinking, those are two dots that should not be connected.  He is not being paid by Du Pont at this time to speak in favor of GMOs.  He is, however, an expert in his field.  His various jobs prove that he is a dedicated scientist and continues to contribute to his field of study.  (If I may further digress just one moment – compare Savage’s career to, say,  Jeffrey Smith, the pop-culture-so-called expert in GMOs and founder of the Institute of Responsible Technology.  Google Smith’s name.  Compare his credentials to Savage’s.  Do it.  I can only ask this:  who then is the real expert?)

Julee K/Sleuth4Health

Note:  this article is being reprinted under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

Note:  The title of this post was changed to “Luxury GMOs.  Oh Boy”

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Five Tasty Reasons To Reconsider GMO Crops

by Steve Savage on 17 June 2014

Feeding the world may not seem like an urgent need from the perspective of a rich society with an obesity epidemic. Technologies that make life easier and less risky for farmers may not seem compelling in a society with very few people having anything to do with crop production. Developing rice to prevent blindness and death in poor countries generates vehement opposition from some elements of our wealthy society. There are, however, some threats to the future of our lifestyles that might motivate consumers to take a second look at the debate around GMO crops.

What if premium coffee, gourmet chocolate, fine California wine, bananas, or not-from-concentrate orange juice become costly or scarce? Would that matter to you?

The fact is, there are significant threats to the future production of those luxury crops.  I’ll describe those threats below. Yet, because of the influence of the anti-GMO movement, we are far less prepared to deal with these threats than we could have been.

How Brand Protectionism Works

Let me explain the link between the anti-GMO campaign and the tenuous future of these crops.  Genetically engineered crops were first approved and commercialized in the mid-1990s, and went on to become the largest and most rapid technology deployment in the history of agriculture.  In the beginning of this era, there was quite a bit of interest in potential applications to coffee, bananas, grapes etc. There were projects like a coffee engineered to never make caffeine so it didn’t have to have its flavor compromised for de-caf. There were ideas like bananas that would last longer at an ideal stage of ripeness. There were active and drawing-board projects to deal with some of the major pest issues of each of these crops.

However, by the end of the 90s, the anti-GMO campaigns scared enough consumers with baseless concerns about food safety issues to trigger a phenomenon called “brand protectionism.” For items like wine, coffee, bananas, chocolate and orange juice, there are processing and distribution companies that bring the final product to the market. Those companies have valuable consumer brands, and the last thing they want is controversy that could compromise their brand reputation and thus, sales.  Driven by those concerns, virtually all the investment in biotechnology had dried up for those crops by 2000.  The prime example of a commercial biotech crop that faced this brand issue, was potatoes. The improved biotech version of potatoes disappeared to protect a very valuable brand. McDonald’s knew that the insect resistant and virus resistant potatoes commercialized in the late 90s were extremely popular with growers.  They also knew that there were no safety issues. However, they didn’t want the threat of protests outside their stores.  They effectively ended biotech potatoes with a few phone calls to their major suppliers.

Biotech investment in “specialty crops” did not stop because of any safety or environmental issues. GMO crops were the first method of genetic modification to ever be proactively regulated in any way by the USDA, the EPA and the FDA. This framework was in place 10 years before the first commercial acre was ever planted. Over and over again the relevant authorities found each new crop/trait to be extremely safe. In spite of this, serious investment in biotechnology solutions for these and other luxury crops dried up because the anti-GMO campaigners managed to convince enough consumers to be afraid or suspicious to make brand managers nervous. It gives me no pleasure to acknowledge that victory, but it is reality.

I am not suggesting that genetic engineering would have been an easy solution to these and other evolving threats, but we can only speculate what might have been possible with 15 years of steady investment.  There has been a limited amount of investment in biotech for these crops from farmer organizations, and some from public entities, but the big consumer-marketing players with the greatest ability and need to support this research have largely remained on the sidelines. Some have invested in basic genome sequencing which is good, but they have not crossed the brand-endangering line of pursuing “GMO” options – even as a back-up strategy. None of these influential companies has been willing to step up and explain these risks to the public and explain why they should reconsider the potential benefits of biotechnology for these popular foods and beverages. The anti-GMO activists fully recognize this dynamic and take pre-emptive action when new technologies arise.

Why Are There Major Threats to Our Favorite Crops?

Pests are nothing new, and they have often disrupted agriculture in the past.  However there are two unique aspects of our times that exacerbate such risks:

1. With ever-increasing global travel and commerce, new exotic pathogens, weeds, and insect pests are spread around the world at a faster rate than ever before.  These create severe problems which threaten entire crops
2. As climate changes, pests are often able to thrive in new places or at different times of year than in the past, creating much more difficult control issues.

This enhanced potential for existential pest threats is particularly problematic for many of our favorite luxury food and beverage crops. What we really appreciate about those crops has to do with complex quality factors.  They are also perennial crops.  You can’t just breed a new pest resistant variety of these crops because it is so hard to maintain the quality, and because each generation of seed takes years to produce.  Conventional genetic solutions would take decades at best, and the new pest challenges don’t give us that luxury. Here are some of the key threats to things we enjoy:

California Wine Grapes

The Glassy Winged Sharpshooter which is now spreading Xylella, Wikimedia Commons

The bacteria-like pathogen Xylella fastidiosa is native to the US and lethal to the premium wine grapes that were brought here by Europeans (Vitis vinifera).  However, it wasn’t an unmanageable issue in California because the insect vector, the Bluegreen Sharpshooter, mainly stayed in riparian areas and only occasionally spread the pathogen into vineyards.

Then, in 1989, a new vector, the Glassy Winged Sharpshooter, arrived in California.  It thrives on citrus and frequently visits grapes.  For now that vector has been restricted to Southern California and is being managed there with insecticides and quarantines on moving plants that might spread it. But if and when the sharpshooters invade the key North Coast wine districts, things could get ugly for wine lovers.  There is also the risk that the vector and Xylella could get transported to places like South America, or Australia.  Xylella recently made it to Europe.  There are native American grapes that are resistant to this pest, but they don’t make premium wine.  There may be a genetic engineering solution, but for a perennial crop one would ideally want multiple approaches to manage resistance.  Even if we had a solution today it would take a long time to replant or re-graft our vineyards. We should really be having a very public discussion about this solution now, but we are not.

Specialty Coffee From The Americas

Coffee leaf infected with rust, de.wikipedia

The Coffee Rust pathogen wiped out production in Java and other areas that had supplied England in the 1800s.  They had to switch to tea. Later, the coffee industry escaped the disease by moving to places like the highlands of Central and South America.  The rust pathogen caught up around 1985, but only recently has the climate changed such that the disease has become a major problem in those regions.  Traditional breeding for resistance is possible by crossing the desirable Arabica types with the hardier Robusta types, but that requires chromosome doubling of Robusta – a step which can cause all sorts of genetic damage.  Then to back-cross to restore the full quality of the Arabica would take a very long time, probably not something that can preserve the livelihoods of the small-holder coffee farming families that have been the backbone of the industry in the Americas. Realistically, we in the rich world will probably be able to get our morning dose from some other geography, but because genetic engineering has been “off the table” for coffee since the mid 1990s, lots of poor families are being hurt and coffee prices are rising.

Florida Orange Juice

The Florida juice industry has largely moved to the not-from-concentrate, premium orange juice segment because of competition for frozen juice coming from Brazil.  Now, the whole Florida industry is in serious decline because of a new bacterial disease spread by a new, exotic insect vector.  There is an excellent description of this situation in the New York Times by Amy Harmon.  Growers have funded some research that may have found a “GMO” solution, but whether they will get to use it is up to brand-sensitive juice marketing companies. Far better funded research would have been appropriate in a rational world. When I was growing up there was a ubiquitous add for orange juice that said, “a day without orange juice is like a day without sunshine.”  I don’t know if that is really true, but at least when it comes to the not-from-concentrate kind, we might get to find out.

Bananas

The 1930s hit song, “Yes, We Have No Bananas” was actually about “Panama Disease” (Fusarium oxysporum) which wiped out the previous banana of commerce (the Gros Michel variety).  Fortuitously, a new banana called the Cavendish was found in Vietnam. It was resistant to the disease and also suitable for shipping (most bananas are not).  Now there is a new strain of the same pathogen called Fusarium Tropical Race 4, which is destroying the Cavendish in Asia and recently in Australia and Mozambique.  It is probably only a matter of time before someone inadvertently transports this soil-borne pathogen to the Americas.  There has been a little work on a solution, but nothing close to what would be needed to protect the future supply of this popular fruit or the jobs of a great many people involved in growing and shipping it.  Maybe its time for someone to do a cover of “Yes, we have no bananas.”

Banana Wilt, from ilbe.com

Chocolate

Cacao, the crop from which we get chocolate, has many pests, but two in particular have been spreading throughout Central and South America leading to dramatic declines in production. The diseases are called Witch’s Broom and Frosty Pod, and according to leading researchers, Frosty Pod alone “presents a substantial threat to cacao cultivation worldwide.” Major confectionary companies have funded genome sequencing, but on their websites they imply or state outright that they won’t be pursing genetic engineering solutions (Nestle, Mars, Hershey’s).  Once again, the people at the most risk here are small-scale farmers, particularly those in Africa, should these pathogens make it there from the Americas.

Why GMO?

Modern genetic engineering approaches could be very logical ways to protect these particular crops.  The genetics that drive quality are complex, so we have good reason to stick with the best varieties we know.  Genetic engineering is a way to bring in some useful gene without disrupting the genetic base for quality.  Sometimes that might involve moving a gene from a wilder or less desirable member of the same or a closely related species into the high quality background.  Sometimes it might mean moving a gene from some other plant when no same-species options are available.  It could mean simultaneously pursuing the use of several different genes so that they could be co-deployed for resistance management purposes.  It might mean engineering a rootstock that would protect the traditional variety grafted on top.

Also, with these crops it would be feasible to maintain separate “GMO” and “Non-GMO” product options.  ”Identity preservation” is the norm for crops like this because they have the value and quality attributes to justify the cost of keeping records, using different equipment etc.  There may be consumers who will never trust the science, and in a rich society they can continue to buy a non-GMO option.  What does not make sense in a rich, technically sophisticated society is that a vocal minority has already compromised the future supply for all of us. You can’t get back more than a decade of lost opportunities for progress just by throwing money at a problem that becomes a crisis.  What makes even less sense is that the people who would lose the most in these pest-driven scenarios are, in many cases, the poorer people whose labor we require in order to enjoy these luxuries.

You are welcome to comment here and/or to email me at savage.sd@gmail.com.

Are GMOs Dangerous – Like, At All?

Here are the final two installments of the 10-part short video series put out by Greenstate TV titled “GMO Mythbusting”.   This is an excellent at-a-glance series that so aptly touches on some of the main points of the public outcry against GMOs.  The snippets are easily digestible and provide just enough information to hopefully make viewers want to know more.

 

GMO Research and the Non-Scientist

I speak often about non-scientists trying to comprehend science.  I know I have repeated myself over and over but it’s so crucial to decide how one will interpret science in this day and age.  As science and industry advance at what seems an ever increasing pace, we all have to decide how we are going to grapple with new technologies.  When it comes to personal devices like tablets and phones, we can’t seem to get enough and we don’t care about the science, but crop biotechnology – a technology that has an impressive list of ways it has already helped and will help our global food production?  Not so much.

Many non-scientists like myself are unable or more likely, unwilling to spend the time it would take to decipher and really understand complicated research so we have to put our trust in what others say about it.  Every time we hear a news story, read an article or blog post about the newest threat, the latest “study” –  it is incumbent on us as intelligent citizens to consider, at least, the following:

-Is the interpretation of the research correct in this post, article or story?

– Has the research or study met all criteria of the standard scientific method?

– Is the data being presented in its entirety or has it been cherry-picked to serve an agenda?

– Does any real data even exists at all? (this may seem obvious but some so-called studies make outlandish claims with no data whatsoever to support them)

– Correlation does not equal causation (perhaps THE most important point of all)

Believing the Experts

After once believing activists to the point of not questioning their often radical claims, I have since opted to trust public, independent scientists, institutions and agencies and to distrust activists.  This is not because I believe activists are purposely lying.  I am quite certain they unequivocally believe that GMOs will damage us and that mother earth’s natural biological processes are being harmed and will eventually be doomed.

Far worse than what they think is that they are sadly misinformed and unnecessarily frightened.

At some point I had to ask myself who the real experts are.  There was only one answer.  Surely those who have devoted their academic careers to this topic, who have presented and defended dissertations in a single area of expertise, who speak and breathe the vernacular of biology and genetics on a daily basis, who spend their Saturday evenings in a lab, surely they are the ones to believe!

And specifically, I’m not referring to scientists who work for companies but the ones who work independently and in universities, as their work is often, if not always a matter of public record.  That is not to say that there is anything whatsoever wrong with scientists who work for companies.  Everyone has to make a living and I feel for PhDs who work for Monsanto and the like.  It must be disheartening to have your life’s work be so needlessly vilified.

As for public scientists? They hang their hats on their reputations. Dr. Folta, the molecular biologist featured in all ten videos is such a public, independent scientist.  He also happens to be the academic who first alerted me to the error of my ways and once I looked deeper, there was no going back.  I, Julee K, once an anti-GMO activist, had to admit that I had been completely and utterly wrong.

To summarize:  I now find the science to be infinitely more believable when it comes from folks who do this work every day of their professional lives.  When you’ve got good facts there is no need for propaganda, sensationalism,  doomsday predictions or corporate bashing.

It’s just plain data.

Evidence.

And it doesn’t lie.

~Julee K/Sleuth4Health

 

 Video # 9:  Are GMOs bad for the environment?

 

 Video # 10:  Are GMOs Dangerous?

Ten Part Series: GMO Mythbusting

Greenstate TV,  a website with a subheading that reads:  exploring agriculture’s surprising role in solving modern global challenges, puts out short videos about GMOs and other related agriculture topics.  Rick, the interviewer conducts the tête–à–têtes over skype.  For short little snippets of reliable information or pro-science opinions, the videos fit the bill.  Rick even interviewed yours truly once.  (See the two parts in reverse chronological order here and here.)

The newest Greenstate TV installment is the first of a ten part series addressing the myths that abound over the internet about GMOs.  And who better to dispel those myths than a public plant geneticist?  In part one, Dr. Kevin Folta addresses the myth that GMOs are unregulated.

I will post the entire series as it is released.

European Farmers Voice ‘Deep Concern’ About GM Policies

It would be nice if farmers worldwide could decide their own fate, how they wanted to farm, what technologies they wanted to utilize to make operations more efficient, sustainable or environmentally friendly.  For an example of how frustrating that desire currently is to many farmers and farm groups in Europe, see the article below by Philip Case, reprinted from Farmers Weekly, London.

Among the farming groups listed in the piece, it appears there is a general feeling that their hands are tied, that farming in general is not able to forge ahead into the future and take advantage of crop improvements realized via biotechnology that many other parts of the world, the US being one of them, are able to do.  This is due to current EU policy regarding GMOs – in spite of the fact that like it or not, science has not found anything wrong with genetically engineered food.

Much of what is in this article supports recent posts at Sleuth4Health, including my dis on the activist group (ENSSER)[1].

Scientific consensus on GM crops safety ‘overwhelming’

Philip Case

Friday 25 October 2013 10:00

The Agricultural Biotechnology Council (ABC) has refuted claims from an anti-GM campaign group that there is “no scientific consensus” on the safety of genetically modified foods.

More than 90 scientists, academics and physicians added their names to a statement published this week which challenges claims from the UK government and biotech companies that GM foods are safe.

The European Network of Scientists for Social and Environmental Responsibility (ENSSER) released the statement in the week after the World Food Prize was awarded to employees of GM seed giants Monsanto and Syngenta.

ABC chair Julian Little said the statement had been put together by an anti-GM group and he insisted that contrary to the claims, there was an “overwhelming weight of evidence” that points to the safety of GM crops.

Dr Little said: “Biotech crops are among the most extensively tested foods in the history of food safety.

“In 2010, the European Commission concluded on the basis of 130 research projects involving 500 independent groups over 25 years that ‘there is, as of today, no scientific evidence associating GMOs with higher risks for the environment or for food and feed safety than conventional plants and organisms’.

“This year, the representative body of the national science academies of the EU Member states agreed, saying that ‘there is no validated evidence that GM crops have greater adverse impact on health and the environment’ than any other crops produced using plant breeding techniques.”

Dr Little added that an estimated three trillion meals containing GM ingredients have been eaten around the world over the past 13 years “without a single substantiated case of ill-health”.

“The World Health Organisation (WHO) has said that: ‘No effects on human health have been shown as a result of the consumption of such foods by the general population in the countries where they have been approved’.”

Dr Little said the WHO’s statement was backed up by government regulators around the world, including the Food Standards Agency (FSA) in the UK.

The Agricultural Biotechnology Council (ABC) of Australia said the ENSSER’s statement “flies in the face of a consenus of an overwhelming majority of scientists”.

“Every legitimate scientific organisation that has examined the evidence has arrived at the conclusion that GM crops and the foods they produce pose no risk to human health or the environment beyond those posed by their conventional counterparts,” added ABC Australia.

Meanwhile, EU farming groups, including the NFU, NFU Cymru, NFU Scotland and the Ulster Farmers’ Union (UFU), have added their name to a different letter, which voices “deep concern” about the effects of GM policies and regulations in the EU.

In an open letter sent to the European Commission on behalf of the French Association for Plant Biotechnology (AFBV), they called for better for access to the best crops, including GM varieties, so that agriculture in Europe can be more sustainable and less reliant on imported products.

The letter states that the lack of options for GM technology available to farmers in Europe can equate to significant loss of income and a missed opportunity.

Helen Ferrier, NFU chief science and regulatory affairs adviser, said: “The heads of EU institutions have a great deal of power to sort out this mess and ensure the EU doesn’t become uncompetitive in both agricultural production and scientific research.

“This letter demonstrates the strength of feeling in the agriculture sector across Europe. Swift action must be taken.”

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[1] Is GM Food Safe:  Experts Around the Globe Answer, Pollan’s Fall From Grace

(This article was formerly titled:  European farmers are frustrated with the politics of genetic engineering)

The European Union’s opposition to GM crops has nothing to do with safety

Below is a gem of an article published a few days ago at Biofortified.org – one of my “go to” websites.  So much attention is given to the fact that Europe bans the cultivation and importation of most genetically modified food.  The widely accepted perception in the US is that safety is at the heart of this policy.  What is really behind this ban?  The answer may surprise you.

By Alexander Huszagh on 3 October 2013

Two years ago, a woman in a classroom with me muttered “isn’t that a good thing?” about the ban on the cultivation and importation of most genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in the European Union (EU), “it protects EU citizens, right?”

“Nope, the ban on GMOs merely allows the EU to act as an autonomous region through its politics of food security. The EU set up the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) in part for food security, and the ban on GMOs is but an excuse to ban foreign imports and prevent dependency on foreign seed manufacturers in order to maintain the EU’s agricultural self-sufficiency,” my professor for my course on the development and politics of the EU responded.

In spite of my friend’s interjections that the restrictions of GMO imports and cultivation were meant as a form of consumer protection, this professor demonstrated  examples to the contrary, highlighting how the ban reflects economic protectionism rather than safety considerations and how the EU’s economic protectionism ensures food security and therefore self-autonomy. Like the misconceptions of my friend on the EU’s policy toward GMOs, anti-GMO advocates and the larger public frequently cite the EU’s policies towards GM crops as evidence; contradicting the conclusions of major scientific, health and  food safety organizations from over 600 studies showing the general safety of GM crops. In reality, social and political factors, not scientific concerns, form the basis of the EU’s opposition to cultivating GM crops.

Wheat grown in the United Kingdom, which benefits from the Common Agricultural Policy.

The roots of European agricultural protectionism stem from the formation of the European Union itself. After World War II, Robert Schuman and other European leaders decided that the only way to prevent the outbreak of another war was to link the European economies together, particularly the French and German economies. The shared economic interests would prevent the outbreak of subsequent wars, and therefore lead to increased international interaction within Europe.

Schuman and the other founders commenced on two fronts: by unifying Europe in coal and steel production through the ECSC (European Coal and Steel Community) and soon after in agricultural production through the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).

Implemented in 1962, the CAP subsidized agricultural production in the EU to stabilize european food markets and ensure food security. Despite the high costs, utilizing over 70% of the EU’s overall budget in 1972 and currently costing european consumers over 100€ per year, the CAP remains a central part of EU food politics in an attempt to maintain stable food prices and food security in Europe. Despite the high costs, food security remains integral to European level politics and this manifests in agricultural protectionism.

Due to the extra-national nature of major biotechnology corporations, European attitudes towards GMOs reflect the European policies of food security and self-autonomy through economic protectionism. In order to maintain self-autonomy, the EU must maintain food security through self-sufficient production, since risks to food availability threaten the social and political stability of a region. This desire for self-autonomy therefore leads to a policy of domestic protectionism, which protects inefficient agricultural production at all levels of production in order to ensure food security. Although the EU’s actual food security and self-sufficiency are debatable, economic protectionism of food production also extends to the acquisition of necessary primary materials, such as seeds.

In order to ensure that Europe is immune to outside influences potentially implicating its food security, the EU must also ensure that Europe is not dependent on outside regions for seeds. Since the largest GMO providers, such as Monsanto, Syngenta and DuPont, are extra-national corporations from the United States and Switzerland, the adoption of GMOs presents a perceived risk to European food security by relying on foreign multinational corporations for input materials.

The opposition of the science-based European Food Safety Administration (EFSA) to the EU’s restrictive GMO policy further reinforces the idea that social and political reasons outweigh scientific concerns in restricting GMO cultivation and imports in the EU. The EFSA has repeatedly stated its supported for GMOs previously approved in other countries, such as Bt cotton, Roundup-resistant cotton, and GM maize. Despite these recommendations, which state the low likelihood of any detrimental impact from commercial adoption of these crops, the EU’s food policy remains one of the most restrictive to GMOs in the world. Rather than restricting GMO cultivation on the basis of scientific considerations, the EU’s anti-GMO stance rather reflects their politics of food security and self-sufficiency and emanates from the european agricultural policies active since the beginnings of the EU.

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Articles from Biology Fortified are allowed reprinting via a creative commons licensure.

Do Corporations Really Dominate Farming?

Food and ag writer Tom Philpott of Mother Jones certainly has kept my attention through my own evolution from anti-GMO to pro-science supporter of GMOs.  He used to be my hero.  When it comes to recombinant DNA technology or genetic engineering in general, he mostly writes on the side of the antis but every now and then he comes across quite neutral on his specific food or ag topic and nails it.  At Sleuth4Health, I’m all about the real truth, about GMOs, about agriculture, our food, health, everything. Mostly, I don’t want people to be scared to eat the food that is in their neighborhood grocery store.  Enjoy it!  It is abundant and, for the most part, inexpensive.

I continue to learn as I write this blog.  Now that I actually know a few family farmers, this article was of great interest to me, and coming from Philpott made it even better.

For that reason, I am still a fan of Tom Philpott and Mother Jones!

Here a handful of snippets from his recent article titled:  Does Corporate Farming Exist?  Barely.

Goaded on by small-is-good gospel, plenty of people have adopted a Manichean view of modern US farming: large, soulless corporate enterprises on one side, human-scale, artisanal operations on the other. […]

Reality is a lot more complicated. While there are plenty of mega-corporations in the food industry, they rarely do the actual farming themselves.

A USDA study released in August found that 96.4 percent of US crop farms are “family farms,” or “ones in which the principal operator, and people related to the principal operator by blood or marriage, own more than half.” That number doesn’t leave a lot of room for corporate farmers, does it?

[…]

The story is a bit—but not that much—different in meat production.

[…]

The farms that supply the feedlots—that raise the calves until they are ready to be fattened in those corporate-run confined finishing operations (CAFOS)—are almost exclusively family-owned businesses, as this 2011 USDA paper shows. And there are more than 700,000 of them.

Read the full article here

Of course, eventually the produce and livestock ends up in the hands of Big Ag for the processing of the desired food product but until then, it brings me some comfort to know that, yes, family owned cows do still eat grass! See Montana Cowboy College.

Julee K/Sleuth4Health

email:  sleuth4health@gmail.com