Note the Séralini utilised rats which are prone to develop cancer anyway (over eighty percent of males and over seventy percent of females got cancer under normal conditions). To make this even better, he only used a small number of rats per group limiting its statistical power. Think of it this way. If I had a die and I was told it was weighted to land on a six, can I tell from the number of rolls I make. If I used a high number of rolls, like 100 rolls and it all landed on six, then it would be a safe bet. If I only did one roll, and it landed on six, it doesn't mean much because its not unreasonable to expect a first roll to land on a six (1 in 6 chances). Same principle with the number of rats. Just as you need more rolls of the die to see how statistically probable a given outcome is, you need lots of rats, especially given that a high percentage of the rats he used will develop tumours anyway.Fields of beaten gold
Greens say climate-change deniers are unscientific and dangerous. So are greens who oppose GM crops
Dec 7th 2013 | From the print edition
IN AUGUST environmentalists in the Philippines vandalised a field of Golden Rice, an experimental grain whose genes had been modified to carry beta-carotene, a chemical precursor of vitamin A. Golden Rice is not produced by a corporate behemoth but by the public sector. Its seeds will be handed out free to farmers. The aim is to improve the health of children in poor countries by reducing vitamin A deficiency, which contributes to hundreds of thousands of premature deaths and cases of blindness each year.
Environmentalists claim that these sorts of actions are justified because genetically modified (GM) crops pose health risks. Now the main ground for those claims has crumbled.
Last year a paper was published in a respected journal, Food and Chemical Toxicology. It found unusual rates of tumours and deaths in rats that had been fed upon a variety of maize resistant to a herbicide called Roundup, as a result of genetic modification by Monsanto, an American plant-science firm. Other studies found no such effects, but this one enabled campaigners to make a health-and-safety argument against GM crops—one persuasive enough to influence governments. After the study appeared, Russia suspended imports of the grain in question. Kenya banned all GM crops. And the French prime minister said that if the results were confirmed he would press for a Europe-wide ban on the GM maize.
But the methodology of the study, by Gilles-Eric Séralini of the University of Caen and colleagues, was widely criticised and, on November 28th, the journal retracted the paper (see article). There is now no serious scientific evidence that GM crops do any harm to the health of human beings.
There is plenty of evidence, though, that they benefit the health of the planet. One of the biggest challenges facing mankind is to feed the 9 billion-10 billion people who will be alive and (hopefully) richer in 2050. This will require doubling food production on roughly the same area of land, using less water and fewer chemicals. It will also mean making food crops more resistant to the droughts and floods that seem likely if climate change is a bad as scientists fear.
Organic farming—the kind beloved of greens—cannot meet this challenge. It uses far too much land. If the Green revolution had never happened, and yields had stayed at 1960 levels, the world could not produce its current food output even if it ploughed up every last acre of cultivable land.
In contrast, GM crops boost yields, protecting wild habitat from the plough. They are more resistant to the vagaries of climate change, and to diseases and pests, reducing the need for agrochemicals. Genetic research holds out the possibility of breakthroughs that could vastly increase the productivity of farming, such as grains that fix their own nitrogen. Vandalising GM field trials is a bit like the campaign of some religious leaders to prevent smallpox inoculations: it causes misery, even death, in the name of obscurantism and unscientific belief.
Follow your principles
America takes little notice of this nonsense. But green groups in Europe, with the support of influential figures such as Prince Charles, have succeeded in shaping policy. Governments have hedged genetic research around with so many restrictions that much of the business has fled a continent that could be doing more than most to feed the world. Some developing countries—Kenya, India and others—have turned their backs on technologies that could literally save their peoples’ lives. And European governments spend taxpayers’ money financing groups encouraging them to do so. The group in the Philippines that trashed the rice trials, MASIPAG, gets money from the Swedish government. On moral, economic and environmental grounds, this must stop.
In the field of climate change, environmentalists insist that the scientific consensus should frame policy. They should follow that principle with GM crops, and abandon a campaign that impoverishes people and the rest of the planet.
Funny thing is, the group of rats which developed less tumours than the one fed organic food was the one fed the pesticide round up. No doubt he chose not to focus on that point since the anti GMO angle was that Round up tolerant maize was more toxic (presumably because they used more round up pesticide on it).
Going on, the other thing the OP mentioned was Golden rice. This is a GMO where 3 genes are changed in rice allowing it to produce β-carotene, the precursor to vitamin A. Note rice does have β-carotene in its leaves, but not in the part we eat. Vitamin A deficiency is a problem particularly in the developing world, although it is improving in some countries. This is a topic that interests me, so I kept an eye on development. Currently after testing, approval is being sought for the Phillipines government to grow it. This would make the Phillipines the first country to grow a so called GMO rice (if approved). China is rumoured to be developing a GMO rice as well. Of course, the rice we eat now has been genetically modified, just not via the means environmental groups such as Greenpeace object to. Anyone who is interested can google hybrid rice, and China.
Now Vitamin D deficiency is well, bad. Among other things it causes blindness, impaired immune function and leads to death.
One of the strongest opponent if not the strongest against Golden Rice is YellowGreenpeace. Here is their propaganda.
http://www.greenpeace.org/international ... lden-Rice/
Greenpeace believes in the Marie Antoinette 1 quote of "let them eat cake." You see, some people are so poor that most of their diet is rice. Its difficult to get other Vitamin A rich foods to where they live (ie isolated rural areas). Its actually cheaper to feed them GM rice. For example Supplementation programs costs $4,300 for every life they save in India, whereas fortification programs cost about $2,700 for each life saved. Whereas golden rice would cost just $100 for every life saved from vitamin A deficiency. Yep, these poor people can't get much of these other foods with vitamin, but don't worry, let them eat these foods anyway. Naturally despite whining about the tens of millions of dollars being wasted on golden rice when it could have been better spent on supplements, one wonders why GP doesn't mention how much of its €236.9 million budget (2011) were spent on these programs.
Greenpeace of course is not above destroying fields where GMOs are being grown, although their vandalism seems confine to Australia and Europe. The Golden Rice field that was attacked in Asia earlier this year was done by MASIPAG. Fortunately the Golden rice field that was attack was only one of many and enough data has been gathered. Note Greenpeace supported the destruction.
Funny thing is, Greenpeace criticises fellow environmental fanatic group Sea Shepherd for using violence against Japanese whalers. Even though a total of ZERO Japanese whalers died when Sea Shepherd confronted them. 2. This of course begs the question, how many children have died from vitamin A deficiency related causes because Greenpeace and fellow environmental groups like Friends of the Earth and Food First tried their best to delay GR being tested, since it was available in 2000. Equal to the amount of Japanese whalers on their ships at risk from Sea Shepherd's antics? How about 1 million. Maybe 2 million. Try 8 million. But don't worry, Greenpeace abhors the violence of Sea Shepherd because of the potential to cause loss of life.
You know for a group which extols how bad violence is because of the"potential consequences" they sure have a lot of blood on their hands.
This is why I detest some of these environmental groups. They are not only unscientific in their endeavours, hypocritical, but inhumane as well. But hey, Greenpeace gives the middle finger to Tsar Putin so they are ok.
1 Yes I am aware that while this quote is commonly attributed to her in popular culture, she most probably didn't say it
2 In fact, there was a loss of life when a Japanese whaler fell overboard..... when Sea Shepherd wasn't around. The latter volunteered to help look, the whalers told them no.
