GM food studies

[David H]

Are there any peer reviewed studies showing ill effects from GM foods under any circumstances? For the obvious reasons it is tough as heck finding any online as certain industries would make sure they are removed as soon as possible and currently only found a couple in recent newspapers.

[LazyGun]

Which peer reviewed studies showing ill effects ( I assume on humans) have you seen in the papers, David? Can you offer any links, because they sound interesting....

[jake-the-peg]

I think your conspiracy theory lacks substance.

GM trials are rather open affairs and if the results weren't published it would be pretty obvious.

Besides which GM is a very broad ticket - all sorts of genetic modifications are possible and verifying safety or otherwise in one says nothing about future products.

Therefore there is always a risk, nobody can certify GM safe globally any more than they can certify timmed foods safe from botulism or air conditioning from Legionaire's.

Consequently there is a risk/benefit calculation that has to be made - and this is where I have an issue with GM.

You and I don't benefit from GM

The sort of GM modifications being sought benefit the supermarkets - longer shelf lives, cheaper production methods etc.

Of course they might share those savings with us - what do you reckon the chances of that is given that Tesco's profits for the first 6 months of 2012 were £1.7bn? and that was their first fall since 1994

So if you and I aren't going to see the benefit of GM - Where's that leave the Risk/benefit calculation?

[beso]

There are many articles about bad effects of GM food. However rarely do they ever include references. When they do the trail passes along through publications explicitly devoted to opposing GM and eventually to a dead end.

I saw one recently about pigs in Denmark. The farmer had been feeding them GM soybeans and the pigs were having big problems including defects in their piglets.

Then he changed the diet to not GM soybeans and fish meal and oh wow the problems stopped, proving GM causes birth defects.

Never mind the fish meal. It had to be the GM. Yet it is well known that soy is far from a complete food. Indeed it prevents the absorption of vital nutrients. It wouldn't surprise me at all that a diet of soy alone would cause huge problems.

But the opponents of GM are not interested in the truth. It was proof that GM was toxic.

We used to contribute to Green Peace but withdrew our support when they destroyed GM research crops. We are not the only ones.

GM is the greatest tool we have to advance agriculture. Simplistic notions that lump all GM into one and declare it as bad are ridiculous.

[beso]

Another exposure of a typical "study" of GM.

http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2012/11/retraction-gm-crop-cancer-study.html

GM opposition is heading down the the same track as the fraudulent "studies" of the link between MMR vaccine and autism.

The conspiracies are by the opponents who care nothing for the truth in the pursuit of their dogma.

The really sad thing is that this kind of fraud masks genuine science by association of opposition to technology with fraud,

[David H]

If I had a list of studies I wouldn't have asked here, but have heard enough about rat's stomachs exploding and seen the tumour photos to know there's a good chance these are likely to point to some genuine results. And only today The Mail published that drug trial details are trade secrets, even from the doctors, who have to prescribe on what are basically only press releases and some have been withdrawn since when found not to work or worse. If that's the law (which it is) then GM isn't going to be far off that position. Secrecy tends to be the norm in corporate and government circles, and as that example is 100% correct then it implies it isn't restricted just to medicines. I'll keep looking, I have other sources left to check.

[LazyGun]

Hmm

One long evidence free assertion there from David H.
1. Give me a link to a genuine story showing a link between GM foods and "rats stomachs exploding".
2. Give me a link to a genuine story showing a causal link between GM foods and "tumours".

You are right that the current situation surrounding drugs trials is a scandal, with Pharma companies able to simply consign trials showing negative or equivocal results to a drawer. The Pharma industry needs to clean up its act and bring in better and more transparent regulation as a matter of urgency.

That does not invalidate all the reports, all the science though -it does not mean automatically believing in conspiracy or rejecting all the science that actually is published rather than challenging our beliefs.

And there is nothing wrong about being sceptical about some of the GM food developments - But we should not be stopping all research and development of GM grains etc, some of which is going to be very necessary if we are to cope with the human population explosion and climatic changes registering around the globe...

[Old_Geezer]

I don't think you've been eating this stuff long enough to make any conclusions. That will be for your grandchildren to discover whether the unnecessary risk was a bad idea. Besides the affect on the environment is likely to be more perilous IMO.

[beso]

David, the story about tats you are referring to is a derivative of the "study" related to link I posted.

These experiments used rats that have been bred with a propensity to contract cancers. The statistical analysis showed that insufficient rats were used to draw any significant conclusions based on diet.

[woofgang]

IMO, the issue with GM is not what it does to the individuals who eat it but what the growth of GM plants does to the environment eg by releasing GM pollen. Once its out there, its not a reversible process.

[beso]

In most cases the concerns about the health effects of eating GM food can be likened to a termite being worried about the words written in the text of a newspaper it had consumed.