What is with the anti GM idiots?

[Sea Skimmer]

I don't know why the buying seed issue gets so much damn attention. Hybrid seeds have been in extensive use for almost a century and you already have to buy those new each year. Farmers do it because its an advantage to do so, plain and simple.

[madd0ct0r]

because hybrid seeds aren't locked down under patent by moderately evil trans-nats?

because, when it comes down to it, I'd trust Monsanto no further then I could throw the entire company staff, at once, with one hand tied behind my back, and thus I dislike the idea of becoming dependent on their products.

I think GM is the future, and a neccesary one but following things like BSE>CJD I'm a little wary of 'approved safe foodstuffs'

[Spoonist]

That just means that all the people Monsanto pisses off will start getting rather, eh, unorthodox in punishing Monsanto for their villainy. After such bitter lessons, they won't be stupid enough to fight their battles in kangaroo courts.

It'd be sort of like fighting the Westboro church; smart opponents won't play their game, they'll make them play theirs.

Que?
AD is not talking about potential risks. He is talking about what has already been happening for at least two decades vs farmers.
I think personally that GM food discussion should stay clear of Monsanto because they have consistantly been making profit on misery since the 50s, for a company that started in 1901 that makes it about 50% good, right? This since its very hard for a positive dialog when the biggest actor on the market is trying to make companies like Haliburton look good.

Just google Monsanto 2012 and add something like litegation or criminal investigation or lawsuit. They are all over the place, and that is this year only. Go further back and its more and more misery.
Its clear that the company has had a manager culture for decades and decades that doesn't care about people. So they could have amazing life-saving products and I'd still be opposed to them until they change their corporate culture.
Or simply pop over to EPA and search on Monsanto, only in the US that is hundreds of violations. Then do the same in other major countries like France and Germany and you'll see hundreds upon hundreds more. Its their corporate culture, they will violate safety concerns, they will handle toxins recklessly, they will cover their ass whenever through loopholes, they will never admit fault, they will always defend in court, add on top the encouragement of local facilities to "solve things, we don't care how" which led to bad things in South america and Africa . That may sound like good business sense, but most chemical giants do not do all of those consistently.
etc
And that company should be trusted when it comes to GM? Nah, with such a corporate culture, color me sceptic.

[Zaune]

I've heard it suggested that GM crops tend to out-compete all other strains of a particular plant, which has bad knock-on effects when disease strikes. Is there any actual truth in that?

[Spoonist]

I've heard it suggested that GM crops tend to out-compete all other strains of a particular plant, which has bad knock-on effects when disease strikes. Is there any actual truth in that?

That is more market related than GM related.

This since it is also true for non-GM crops. If you have one that outproduce the others then farmers will go for that one. Then suddenly you have a pest/disease that targets that strain specificly and you have a market disaster.

Same thing vs wet years, dry years etc.
When all the farmers use the same strain/seed due to better volume then disasters will strike all at the same time making them hit harder.

Cacao, coffee, potato etc almost all the big crops have seen this in one form or another.


Lots of plant schools have tried to keep a diversity specificly for this, there could be a strand/type that isn't marketable today but might be in the future.

For instance the high yield Cacao bean is much more "bitter" so when the trend for high % of cacao in top quality chocolate boomed one saw an increase in market demand for the non bitter but low yield strand.

[PainRack]

If the point of herbicide/pesticide resistant corn/soy is solely to make profits for Monsanto et al, then why would farmers even buy them? It isn't that simple.

I said companies, I didn't say Monsanto. Agribusiness are also companies.

Besides, vitamin enriched grains find it difficult to make it to market, and are more difficult than just inserting the gene to make the molecule you want; salt tolerance is very difficult to engineer (as is drought resistance -- in fact, these two have been constantly worked on for years and years and we're not really close to commercially successful plants with these traits); and even simple things like Flavr Savr (the GMO tomato from some years back that maintained ripe flavor longer) face huge consumer backlash.

Yes, I do know that. But again, the current practice of simply mixing GM crops with non GM crops means that there is no means for end consumers like me to exert any consumer pressure on food.

[Sea Skimmer]

because hybrid seeds aren't locked down under patent by moderately evil trans-nats?

Actually many of them are, and the US supreme court ruled in 2001 that this is legal under existing patent law.

[Memnon]

Since I feel like I'm responding to multiple people, I'll just answer this way.
Here's a good article on the current cost-benefit situation:

http://www8.nationalacademies.org/onpin ... rdID=12804

"Many American farmers are enjoying higher profits due to the widespread use of certain genetically engineered crops and are reducing environmental impacts on and off the farm," said David Ervin, professor of environmental management and economics, Portland State University, Portland, Ore., and chair of the committee that wrote the report. "However, these benefits are not universal for all farmers. And as more GE traits are developed and incorporated into a larger variety of crops, it's increasingly essential that we gain a better understanding of how genetic engineering technology will affect U.S. agriculture and the environment now and in the future. Such gaps in our knowledge are preventing a full assessment of the environmental, economic, and other impacts of GE crops on farm sustainability."

The bottom line here is that it's impossible to say that current widely-adopted GMOs will only benefit large conglomerates because it simply isn't true. As for the increase in weed resistance -- it's a problem like XDR and MDR bacteria, but the nice part about it in the US is that corn and soy have no close relatives nearby to spread the genes to. So you have to wait for the native crops to independently develop resistance (a timeframe of a decade or so). By then the hope is that your next generation is out.

Ideally one would maintain biodiversity while producing rigorously tested GMO versions of the crops. In the case of, say, corn, this is fine since there's a reservoir of varieties in Mexico that is only steadily eroding and not quite being wiped out by monoculture. Hopefully local food and gourmet movements and the like continue to give such local varieties a market (in the corn example, gourmet tortillas -- the chocolate example is good also).

PS: on Monsanto: give Dow some lovin' too.

Yes, I do know that. But again, the current practice of simply mixing GM crops with non GM crops means that there is no means for end consumers like me to exert any consumer pressure on food.

Sure there is: buy local. If you live in a heavily built-up area that's more difficult, but there are even people who do it in Singapore. You can talk to the farmer and all that. Also, most certification organizations won't allow GMO products in organic label produce, so that's another way to avoid GMOs.

[madd0ct0r]

because hybrid seeds aren't locked down under patent by moderately evil trans-nats?

Actually many of them are, and the US supreme court ruled in 2001 that this is legal under existing patent law.

huh. did not know.

In the U.S. and Australia individual plant varieties are patentable. In Europe, individual plant varieties per se are not patentable, however, a plant which is characterized by a particular gene (as opposed to its whole genome) is not included in the definition of a plant variety and is therefore patentable.

In Europe, transgenic plants are patentable if they are not restricted to a specific plant variety, but represent a broader plant grouping. The European Directive considers plant cells to be "microbiological products" and as a result are patentable.

http://www.patentlens.net/daisy/bios/1234

USA seems to have more flexible patent options, but I should have checked before opening my mouth the first time.

[Alyrium Denryle]

I don't know why the buying seed issue gets so much damn attention. Hybrid seeds have been in extensive use for almost a century and you already have to buy those new each year. Farmers do it because its an advantage to do so, plain and simple.

Not for all strains you dont, no. Public Seed--bred and distributed by land grant universities--is just that. Public. Sure, farmers may or may not buy more each year, but it is legal to clean seed and replant it, and the costs are much lower when purchasing the seed from a non-profit university than they are from a profit-hungry corporation.

That just means that all the people Monsanto pisses off will start getting rather, eh, unorthodox in punishing Monsanto for their villainy. After such bitter lessons, they won't be stupid enough to fight their battles in kangaroo courts.

I was not talking about risks. I was talking about shit that is happening right now. Monsanto and other large corporations DO use those strong arm tactics. They DO corrupt regulatory agencies.

I've heard it suggested that GM crops tend to out-compete all other strains of a particular plant, which has bad knock-on effects when disease strikes. Is there any actual truth in that?

In the nature, not necessarily. In markets? Yes. GM crops tend to have marginally higher yield and as such are preferred by farmers. However, they (and most other crop strains) are inbred to all hell and back, so if there is a disease or climate shift, they tend to get fucked. That is why we have HUGE repositories of seed stock locked away in vaults. Or at least we used to. I have not checked on the status of those in a while.

I also don't like making crops resistant to pesticides. To my mind, all that's going to result in is the weeds growing more resistant, either through natural selection or genetic transfer, creating a cycle needing more and more poison. Poison already costs farmers a fortune, anyway.

Well, here is the problem: we are running out of food. The problem with the Green Revolution is that it requires high input of water, soil nutrients, and pesticides to get the carrying capacity of the earth above 4 billion. Yes. We are actually operating above what the earth's nutrient cycles and top-down control of pests via predation can actually handle right now. Operating above natural carrying capacity causes actual damage to those same processes. For example: we are pumping aquifers dry, and a combination of over-irrigation and fertilization are destroying top soil. Sprayed and non-target-specific systemic pesticides are fucking up the millions of insects and other organisms that keep the ecosystem running. Eventually, the bottom drops out. Like deer over-browsing. Sure there is enough forage to maintain the population for a while, but eventually plant growth cannot keep up and the food supply crashes--followed by the deer.

So, say we drop down fertilization (etc), decreasing crop yield and ALSO have to deal with agricultural pests? No. That will starve billions (of course, 10 million children starve to death every year anyway. I like to call it the Holocaust of Indifference). What we need are better pesticides.

Each crop species really only have a few species of insect that exploit it, for example. Sugarcane for example is attacked by a species of beetle larvae. Beetle metamorphosis is driven by an interplay between Ecdysone and Juvenile Hormone. Ecdysones are really really specific to a given insect species. If we were to genetically engineer plants that produce the form of ecdysone produced by their primary insect pest, it would force them to go into metamorphosis too early when they bite into the plant, but would not harm any other species.

There are other solutions too. Not only crops resistant to more hostile conditions. All the wasted nutrients can be recycled and soil replenished if runoff is captured in artificial wetlands full of annual plants and algae. The plant biomass can then be harvested, mulched into soil, and spread over farmland fairly cheaply. If those are bordered with wetlands, aquifers can be recharged. It just takes the will, and intensive capital investment.

Making salt-tolerant, disease-resistant, more nutritious crops, crops where the farmers can keep the seed and replant, and not have to keep paying a company for the privilege, that makes sense to me. The seed can be given to struggling farmers in starving nations, by welfare groups possibly, or sold to them for a reasonable price. All assuming the crops are well tested for unforeseen consequences. If there's not so much money in it, the testing may be better.

What used to happen (before the rise of large agribusiness with changes in farm-subsidy structure in the 70s) is that large land-grant universities (like Texas A&M) would do the plant breeding and maintain seed stock. They would sell seed, and the did not have restrictive copyright laws surrounding them. The plant strains were researched on the public dime, and effectively sold to farmers at cost. The actual genetic stock was public domain.

We need to go back to this system. Right now, the research is mostly done on the public dime anyway (Monsanto applies for public grants, and much of the research is still done at universities... Monsanto just buys the Intellectual Property Rights). Right now, universities only go along with the current system because they dont have much choice. State budgets have been slashed, and grant funding is not keeping up with the need for it, so universities have to do things like sell intellectual property rights to keep the lights on. Fix that problem, and we can tell Monsanto to fuck off.

[Hamstray]

deleted: n/m

[Eulogy]

So if you were a responsible farmer who buys seed from universities and has wetlands to recycle nutrients and water, how would you go about making sure that Monsanto et al doesn't fuck you over with bullshit contamination lawsuits and socalled royalties??

[Spoonist]

So if you were a responsible farmer who buys seed from universities and has wetlands to recycle nutrients and water, how would you go about making sure that Monsanto et al doesn't fuck you over with bullshit contamination lawsuits and socalled royalties??

Big fence, lots of dogs, plenty of private property signs, a loaded shotgun and not being friendly to strangers? Even then you can't be sure.
Because stuff like corn interbreed. Replication with variation and all of that.

[Sea Skimmer]

Has anyone actually checked the numbers for how often Monsanto actually sues people compared to the several million farms in the US alone, and millions and millions more in other countries potentially exposed, because somehow I doubt the odds of this are overwhelmingly high, nor that everyone sued is an innocent victim.

[Irbis]

Has anyone actually checked the numbers for how often Monsanto actually sues people compared to the several million farms in the US alone, and millions and millions more in other countries potentially exposed, because somehow I doubt the odds of this are overwhelmingly high, nor that everyone sued is an innocent victim.

You know, sometimes just the threat of using force is enough to make everyone around comply. Even one case might force state-wide fear if published enough, and Monsanto has every incentive to make it loud.

I think GM is the future, and a neccesary one but following things like BSE>CJD I'm a little wary of 'approved safe foodstuffs'

Yes, prions should be a big warning before assuming 'if gene X is harmless in organism Y, it's harmless in Z'. People are not rational, even if GMO is best thing since sliced bread, all it takes is a few scandals and it will end up banned and dead like nuclear power, another thing that could have solved a lot of our problems.

[Spoonist]

Has anyone actually checked the numbers for how often Monsanto actually sues people compared to the several million farms in the US alone, and millions and millions more in other countries potentially exposed, because somehow I doubt the odds of this are overwhelmingly high, nor that everyone sued is an innocent victim.

Actually it has declined. This since it was getting too much publicity in the wrong market. ie farmers themselves. So they did that aggressively for 3 years and then pretty much stopped it in the US.
So the actual risk in the US today to get hit by a Monsanto lawsuit is really miniscule, as in lottery winnings miniscule or hit by lightning miniscule.
That doesn't make it any more OK though. Nor does it mean that they didn't do it intentionally.

However, the Q from Eulogy was worded at what you could do to protect yourself, and if a big firm like that with a corporate culture like theirs, then you are pretty much fucked.

I think that there is a list somewhere online of the number of scientists they have had put on their blacklist and it shows to what extent they will go even in the west if they have it in for you. Worse if you live in a poorer country.

[Skgoa]

So, what do the people here who know about this stuff think about this: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/ar ... 1512005637 ?

Abstract

The health effects of a Roundup-tolerant genetically modified maize (from 11% in the diet), cultivated with or without Roundup, and Roundup alone (from 0.1 ppb in water), were studied 2 years in rats. In females, all treated groups died 2–3 times more than controls, and more rapidly. This difference was visible in 3 male groups fed GMOs. All results were hormone and sex dependent, and the pathological profiles were comparable. Females developed large mammary tumors almost always more often than and before controls, the pituitary was the second most disabled organ; the sex hormonal balance was modified by GMO and Roundup treatments. In treated males, liver congestions and necrosis were 2.5–5.5 times higher. This pathology was confirmed by optic and transmission electron microscopy. Marked and severe kidney nephropathies were also generally 1.3–2.3 greater. Males presented 4 times more large palpable tumors than controls which occurred up to 600 days earlier. Biochemistry data confirmed very significant kidney chronic deficiencies; for all treatments and both sexes, 76% of the altered parameters were kidney related. These results can be explained by the non linear endocrine-disrupting effects of Roundup, but also by the overexpression of the transgene in the GMO and its metabolic consequences.
Highlights

► A Roundup-tolerant maize and Roundup provoked chronic hormone and sex dependent pathologies. ► Female mortality was 2–3 times increased mostly due to large mammary tumors and disabled pituitary. ► Males had liver congestions, necrosis, severe kidney nephropathies and large palpable tumors. ► This may be due to an endocrine disruption linked to Roundup and a new metabolism due to the transgene. ► GMOs and formulated pesticides must be evaluated by long term studies to measure toxic effects..

[Memnon]

So, what do the people here who know about this stuff think about this: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/ar ... 1512005637 ?

I took a while to read the paper very thoroughly, and this part in the discussion was very important:

By contrast, the levels of caffeic and ferulic acids in the GM diets, which are also secondary metabolites from this pathway, but not always measured in regulatory tests, are significantly reduced. This may lower their protective effects against carcinogenesis and even mammalian tumors ( [Kuenzig et al., 1984] and [Baskaran et al., 2010]). Moreover, these phenolic acids and in particular ferulic acid may modulate estrogen receptors or the estrogenic pathway in mammalian cells (Chang et al., 2006). This does not exclude the action of other unknown metabolites.

In other words, at least some of the effects of the GM diet may be due to deficits in these antioxidants and maybe to other chemicals they didn't screen for. Not to say that their argument isn't convincing -- I'm definitely convinced Roundup itself has a lot of effects, but the numbers aren't high enough for me to be completely convinced that GM diets in and of themselves are causing the phenotype, especially given the lack of control. A good future study would supplement the diet to control those chemicals.

----

Each crop species really only have a few species of insect that exploit it, for example. Sugarcane for example is attacked by a species of beetle larvae. Beetle metamorphosis is driven by an interplay between Ecdysone and Juvenile Hormone. Ecdysones are really really specific to a given insect species. If we were to genetically engineer plants that produce the form of ecdysone produced by their primary insect pest, it would force them to go into metamorphosis too early when they bite into the plant, but would not harm any other species.

However, that doesn't solve the herbicide problem. Which is much more problematic than pesticides -- even pretty broad-spectrum GM pesticides like BT toxin are still very specific relative to herbicides. BT is typically only effective against certain genii because it targets the insects' guts in a specific way.

What used to happen (before the rise of large agribusiness with changes in farm-subsidy structure in the 70s) is that large land-grant universities (like Texas A&M) would do the plant breeding and maintain seed stock. They would sell seed, and the did not have restrictive copyright laws surrounding them. The plant strains were researched on the public dime, and effectively sold to farmers at cost. The actual genetic stock was public domain.

We need to go back to this system. Right now, the research is mostly done on the public dime anyway (Monsanto applies for public grants, and much of the research is still done at universities... Monsanto just buys the Intellectual Property Rights). Right now, universities only go along with the current system because they dont have much choice. State budgets have been slashed, and grant funding is not keeping up with the need for it, so universities have to do things like sell intellectual property rights to keep the lights on. Fix that problem, and we can tell Monsanto to fuck off.

I disagree with this because I think it's fine for Monsanto to receive grants for basic research -- but if they do receive them for product development beyond the initial discovery process, that seems wrong to me. Note, however, that public universities simply don't have the capacity to maintain the kind of production Monsanto, Dow, et al. have. Not without spinning off a startup that would have to raise a ton of capital, which would quickly lead to another Monsanto if they have a good enough product. I suppose you could run a government monopoly on it -- which may be a good idea, though I just came up with it so who knows.

Also dismantling of the gene patent system would go a long way towards taking some of the seed companies' power.

[K. A. Pital]

I suppose you could run a government monopoly on it -- which may be a good idea, though I just came up with it so who knows.

Government-operated seed banks would allow farmers to only be dependent on their own government. In times of severe need this could give them subsidized seeds. They also wouldn't be forced to "upgrade" if they, en masse, do not want to, since the government unlike Monsanto can be influenced by farmer votes, especially in - say - India. Public seed banks and research centered around universities would also ensure that any technological advances which are made will be likewise public, not closed off as a corporate secret.

[Guardsman Bass]

Here's one response to the study mentioned above:

So what's wrong? The best way to find out is to read the paper, which I did. It turns out to be a very badly designed study, and the report itself omits many crucial details that may (and probably do) completely invalidate the findings. The scientists leading the study have a strongly biases agenda and a conflict of interest, which they failed to reveal. I'll explain below, but meanwhile this study has already been taken up by politicians as proof (proof!) that GMO crops are harmful. As Forbes blogger Tim Worstall explained, this paper is more politics than science.

Let's look at the study itself, which was led by Gilles-Eric Seralini (more on him below) and published last week in Food and Chemical Toxicology. (A copy of the full paper is here.)

The authors studied 200 rats for 2 years, dividing them into 20 group of 10 rats each. The test rats were fed a variety of diets:
Non-GM corn comprising 33% of the diet (this was the control group).
Roundup Ready corn comprising 11%, 22%, or 33% of the food.
Roundup Ready corn that had been treated with Roundup during cultivation.
Non-GM corn but with Roundup itself added to the rats' water.
So what happened? Well, in some groups, the rats got more cancer than controls. But not always. In fact, the authors had to cherry-pick their own data to support their conclusions.

One major problem is that only 10% of the rats were controls - 10 male, 10 female. The study's main claim is that rates of cancer were significantly higher in the rats fed GM corn. Martina Newell-McGloughlin from UC Davis, in an interview with Discovery News, said
"The type of statistical analysis they used is really a type of fishing expedition. One individual referred to it as 'fantasy statistics.' "
Another major problem is that there's no dosage effect. In other words, if Seralini is right and GM food is bad for you, then more of it should be worse. But the study's results actually contradict this hypothesis: rats fed the highest levels of GM corn lived longer than rats fed the lowest level.

A third problem, as Discovery News and other sources reported, is that the rats used in this study are a special laboratory strain that is highly prone to cancer.

Perhaps most damning, though, is the fact that rats fed Roundup directly had the longest survival times. As Seralini's own Figure 1 shows, the longest-living rats in the entire study, out of all the conditions, where those that drank Roundup in their water. These rats outlived the control rats.

Yum! Maybe Perrier should start selling Roundup-enhanced spring water?

Seralini and colleagues struggle to explain the internal contradictions in their study. They write,
"Interestingly, in the groups of animals fed with the NK603 [Roundup Ready corn] without R[oundup] application, similar effects with respect to enhanced tumor incidence and mortality rates were observed."
This tortured English is their way of admitting that rats did worse ("similar effects") when fed GM corn that was grown without Roundup. They don't want to admit that this result contradicts their central hypothesis.

The study was designed to fail: the sample sizes (10 rats in each group) are so small that all the results are likely just due to chance, and none of the differences are meaningful. It's exceedingly unlikely that the Roundup in the rats' water made them live longer, just as it's unlikely that Roundup Ready corn had any effect on the incidence of cancer.

There's another longer, more detailed rebuttal here.

[mr friendly guy]

From the above link

I know that ad hominem attacks aren't valid, but I can't resist pointing out that Seralini's co-author, Joel de Vendomois, is a homeopath, with a "Homeopathy and Acupuncture Diploma", a double dose of quackery in a single degree. Seralini has also published a book about the supposed dangers of GMOs, and he and de Vendomois are the lead scientists at CRIIGEN, an organization devoted to lobbying against GMOs. Of course, even if Seralini and de Vendomois are bad scientists, and even if they have a strong bias, their paper isn't necessarily wrong. It's wrong simply because the science is wrong.

Quite telling really. I have seen the same type of bullshit used to smear Bill Gate's charity by people. Only problem is, they link to websites criticising gardasil (a vaccine Gates supports) run by anti vaxxer bullshit, which repudiates a large portion of modern medicine.

[Alyrium Denryle]

I disagree with this because I think it's fine for Monsanto to receive grants for basic research -- but if they do receive them for product development beyond the initial discovery process, that seems wrong to me.

Provided they publish and not patent said basic research, I have no problem with them getting basic research grants--but they dont do that anyway. Most basic research is still done at universities. In fact, most of the early stages of product development are done in universities. The same with drug development.

Note, however, that public universities simply don't have the capacity to maintain the kind of production Monsanto, Dow, et al. have.

Land grant universities do. Or at least did. I dont know the status on a lot of that land after the 1970s.

However, that doesn't solve the herbicide problem. Which is much more problematic than pesticides -- even pretty broad-spectrum GM pesticides like BT toxin are still very specific relative to herbicides. BT is typically only effective against certain genii because it targets the insects' guts in a specific way.

Yeah. Though BT only affecting certain genera still works because the pest insects are generally fairly plant specific, and each plant only has a few insect pests.

The herbicides are a more difficult problem because it is difficult to excrete them the same way. Still, there are ways. The excretion of allelopathic chemicals might we one way. Just make the soil hostile to weed species while the crop plant is perfectly fine. The only issue there is preventing contamination of native habitats so as to avoid the Salt Cedar problem.

One major problem is that only 10% of the rats were controls - 10 male, 10 female. The study's main claim is that rates of cancer were significantly higher in the rats fed GM corn. Martina Newell-McGloughlin from UC Davis, in an interview with Discovery News, said
"The type of statistical analysis they used is really a type of fishing expedition. One individual referred to it as 'fantasy statistics.' "

I love being a scientist. I can read the study, unfiltered. This part is... sort of right. The design is complicated, but not bad per se. The only problem is that they used the rat as their unit of replication, when they should have been using cages of rats and lavage feeding to control exact doses. That way they have a rate of mortality for each cage (rather than the data matrix using a binary for each rat). It allows one to use statistical tests with a lot more power.

That said, while the statistics used are sub-optimal, they are not "fantasy". They work, they get the job done. However, for the questions asked, they are sub-optimal.

Only 10% of your rats being controls is not a problem in itself. I have experiments where that is the case. The percentage that are controls depends on the experimental design and how many treatment groups you have. The difference is that in my experiments, I am using many hundreds of dragonfly nymphs and replicate each treatment block 8 times.

Another major problem is that there's no dosage effect. In other words, if Seralini is right and GM food is bad for you, then more of it should be worse. But the study's results actually contradict this hypothesis: rats fed the highest levels of GM corn lived longer than rats fed the lowest level.

This is just...silly. Some things have dosage effects, some have threshold effects. This is not an argument against the conclusions of the paper.;

A third problem, as Discovery News and other sources reported, is that the rats used in this study are a special laboratory strain that is highly prone to cancer.

There are arguments in favor of this. Namely, that the strain is sensitive to carcinogens. If you want a conservative test of whether or not something causes tumors, using something prone to cancer as a first pass to see if you should bother using a larger sample size with an organism not prone to tumors is a good bet. The problem is that the authors then generalized their conclusions to things not particularly sensitive to cancer. They should not have done this.

Perhaps most damning, though, is the fact that rats fed Roundup directly had the longest survival times. As Seralini's own Figure 1 shows, the longest-living rats in the entire study, out of all the conditions, where those that drank Roundup in their water. These rats outlived the control rats.

Yeah, but this was not statistically significant.

All that said, would I have published this paper? Fuck no. I dont know how it got past peer review.

[Memnon]

I disagree with this because I think it's fine for Monsanto to receive grants for basic research -- but if they do receive them for product development beyond the initial discovery process, that seems wrong to me.

Provided they publish and not patent said basic research, I have no problem with them getting basic research grants--but they dont do that anyway. Most basic research is still done at universities. In fact, most of the early stages of product development are done in universities. The same with drug development.

Yes, but the seed companies do do a significant amount of basic research. And they do things like endow buildings (my university has a Monsanto lab with a lot of basic biology research labs, for instance) and research funds.

Note, however, that public universities simply don't have the capacity to maintain the kind of production Monsanto, Dow, et al. have.

Land grant universities do. Or at least did. I dont know the status on a lot of that land after the 1970s.

Remember that graph I posted earlier? Land grant universities could maybe produce that much in the 70s, but if you haven't noticed there's much more demand nowadays. Which is why I suggested the government monopoly -- which Stas seems to know about and agree with, so that marks it as a pretty good thought to me.

<snip herbicides>

Yep, I agree. Remember that glyphosate, 2,4-D, etc are both pretty old (~10 years) technologies as far as these things go, and since resistance is starting to show up they'll probably move to such molecules sooner or later... Hopefully with more testing than the current generation.

All that said, would I have published this paper? Fuck no. I dont know how it got past peer review.

1) It's novel (in that it's bigger and longer than similar studies done before... not that that's saying much).
2) It's likely to be cited a lot.
3) I've seen worse. Honestly, it's not too bad except that the power is low. Of course, that's a pretty big problem in statistics, but in all seriousness most food technologists are not statisticians (having met some, this seems to be generally true. There are, of course, many many exceptions).