GMO crops still making headlines.
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Why would you assume that?The_Invisible_Boy wrote: »So I should just assume you guys think that the nutritional label should just be removed then? No need to list any of the other ingredients then?
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DeguelloTex wrote: »
Why would you assume that?The_Invisible_Boy wrote: »So I should just assume you guys think that the nutritional label should just be removed then? No need to list any of the other ingredients then?
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If Monsanto's/GMO seed producers products sucked, farmers wouldn't buy them.0
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milocamolly wrote: »OP watch the documentary GMO OMG on Netflix. It's a really good one and it explains a LOT about Gmos.
It's a terrible documentary (like all food-related documentaries) full of misinformation.
GMOs are fine. Yes, Monsanto sucks. Yes, relying on a handful of multi-nationals for our entire food supply is beyond ridiculous. But there's absolutely nothing wrong with GMOs from a health perspective.0 -
The_Invisible_Boy wrote: »My biggest problem with genetic modification is when they do stuff like modifying corn to be immune to RoundUp so they can drowned the food we eat with it while harming the environment substantially. I personally don't want to ingest glyphosate or any other herbicide or pesticide.
GM of crops for herbicide resistance is almost always to reduce herbicide use - replacing multiple spraying with selective herbicides with fewer sprays of glyphosate that kills practically all weeds. Selectives are generally more exotic chemicals too.0 -
Always take a documentary with a grain of salt. When creating a documentary, what makes it on screen will be carefully edited and chosen for the content they want you to see. GMO OMG deliberately downplays the scientific statistics and data to serve a personal agenda of making all things GMO horrific. You can only trust statistics as much as you can trust the original research/researchers to find the statistics. If a study is saying that GMO is Satan...was the study done by an anti GMO organization? Huge red flag. GMO products do exactly what they were engineered to do. They resist disease and pests better than their non GMO counterparts. More crops for less money means less waste on water, resources and manpower...and chemicals! If the product is able to resist disease and pests on it's own without chemicals, THIS IS A GOOD THING. Less chemicals required for a profitable crop, more food. It's not evil. It's agricultural and scientific engineering at it's finest.0
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xmichaelyx wrote: »milocamolly wrote: »OP watch the documentary GMO OMG on Netflix. It's a really good one and it explains a LOT about Gmos.
It's a terrible documentary (like all food-related documentaries) full of misinformation.
GMOs are fine. Yes, Monsanto sucks. Yes, relying on a handful of multi-nationals for our entire food supply is beyond ridiculous. But there's absolutely nothing wrong with GMOs from a health perspective.
As corporations go (I'm of the opinion that the ability to have a corporation sucks), they're far from the worst. They've actually won awards for environmental consideration / water management, and they've had multiple years receiving best place to work for their LGTBQ by the Human Rights Campaign. Also, when they do have an actual patent suit with a farmer who has violated their contract, they donate any money won to local scholarships.0 -
The_Invisible_Boy wrote: »The_Invisible_Boy wrote: »Other costs involve new labels, keeping compliance records, inspection, companies possibly sourcing higher cost ingredients to avoid carrying the label.Other costs involve new labels, keeping compliance records, inspection, companies possibly sourcing higher cost ingredients to avoid carrying the label.
I'm not sure why a company would have compliance records or inspections to prove that they DID have GMO products?? That doesn't make much sense. If the company sourced a GMO free product so they didn't have to label then they would no longer fall under the argument. As far as scarring consumers off, it doesn't seem to scare off the artificial sweetener crowd with the whole cancer thing. All it boils down to is if your product contains GMOs then you would just have to add it to the little nutritional label already found on the box. A few extra words. No fees, no records and no inspection to label your product that you already produce with them now.
You don't get to magically dismiss costs because you don't understand them.
What you're proposing amounts to put contains GMO on all food, and no cost. Except companies will want to show when food is GMO free.
Basically, you don't want the label for information. You want it to scare people.
I'm still waiting for valid costs? I'm not magically dismissing anything. Stating that companies would have compliance fees to produce the same food they do now without compliance fees is ridiculous. Their product isn't changing at all! Why are you so scared of consumers being told what's in their food. I'm trying to figure out why some of of you are so afraid of people being informed. Did all the candy companies go out of business when they had to put calories on the box? Did the frozen dinner section companies go out of business when they had to list the sodium content??
No, you dismissed costs because you made flawed assumptions about how labeling would work. Quite frankly, ridiculous claims of how it worked. Your thought is that everything now that isn't already sporting the Non-GMO verified or Organic label would just slap "may contains GMOs" on it. If that's what you want, just assume GMOs are in all those things, problem solved. Quit expecting me to pay for you to have a label to try to scare people and make a concern where there is none.
http://www.gmaonline.org/news-events/newsroom/cornell-study-mandatory-gmo-labeling-would-increase-food-prices-500-for-ny/
Unfortunately the links to the paper themselves seem to have gone dead on Cornell's site.
That same study also did do a cost based on the your assumptions about "slap a label on everything" and be done with it. That still had a cost of $46. Why do I have to pay $.01 because you want to know something that doesn't have any scientific basis for it being significant.0 -
The_Invisible_Boy wrote: »So I should just assume you guys think that the nutritional label should just be removed then? No need to list any of the other ingredients then?
You can assume what you want, but I think you know what they say about when you assume.
Nutritional labels have actual useful information on them. You're on a forum that revolves around a website / app that does calorie counting. You'll most people here lose and gain weight here based on the information presented in those labels.0 -
The_Invisible_Boy wrote: »DeguelloTex wrote: »
Now?The_Invisible_Boy wrote: »DeguelloTex wrote: »
Not a lot of profit in dead customers.The_Invisible_Boy wrote: »stevencloser wrote: »The_Invisible_Boy wrote: »The_Invisible_Boy wrote: »Scrambling genes and seeing what happens is not the same thing as splicing plant DNA with another organism. So, GMOs have NOT been around since the 1930s. However, I'm not thrilled about mutagenesis either if that's what you're getting at. That's why I grow my own garden with organic heirloom seeds to reduce my chances of any of that crap.
Genes have been crossing species since the dawn of DNA. Nature does transgenics. You are transgenic.
Yeah, naturally in nature.
You know what nature makes naturally? Millions of things that would straight up kill you if you ate them.
Manmade things for the purpose of eating? Those don't kill you.
Yeah, I know. That's why I don't eat wild berries when I don't know what they are.
Those man made things are made for profit.
I'm confused now? Are you saying GMOs kill people now?
You wrote, "Those man made things are made for profit." I responded that there isn't a lot of profit in dead customers. I thought that would be clear but, extending it, the way to profit is to make things people want and that don't harm them.
So why not label them and let consumers make their own informed decision since you say they want it? Have you ever eatin an heirloom tomato? It tastes loads better than any GMO(extended for shelf life"profit") tomato. I guess you might find this hard to believe, but an heirloom tomato won't kill you! I guess people don't want a tasty tomato though, they'd rather have a bland tomato that has been modified to have a long shelf life so there's more profit. My bad. I better stop eating the veggies out of my garden and the organic fruits in veggies from the store. I didn't realize they would kill me!!!
You do know Flavr-Savr tomatoes aren't sold anymore, don't you?
Current common transgenic crops are Corn (Bt and RoundUp Ready, 2,4d resistant looking for approval), Soy (RoundUp Ready), Papaya (Ringspot resistant), Potato (Innate low amounts of protein that turns into acrylamide at high temps). Goldren Rice and Arctic Apples all are on the horizon. Probably some more if I was actually going to Google instead of do this list off my head.0 -
FunkyTobias wrote: »GaleHawkins wrote: »I guess they were just off my radar until some recent reading on the subject. I expect it will take years before science will prove where they are bad, neutral or good for animal usage.
You guess wrong
Van Eenennaam and Young then approach the question of GMO feeding from a different angle. Since 1996 90-95% of animal feed in the US has been GMO. Prior to 1996 0% was GMO. This offers the opportunity for a large observational study to see if the rapid and thorough introduction of GMO feed in the US resulted in any adverse health effects for the animals.
This data is observational, meaning the authors are looking at data collected out there in the world and not part of any controlled prospective experiment. Observational data is always subject to unanticipated confounding factors. However, robust observational data is still highly useful, and has the potential to detect any clear signals.
In this case the data is particularly useful for a couple of reasons. First, the number of animals for which there is data is massive – in the billions per year. Second, the industry actually carefully tracks certain outcomes, as it is necessary or critical to their business.
For example, cattle are examined both premortem and postmortem for any abnormalities, such as tumors or signs of infection or other illness. Any sign of illness and that cow is not approved for meat. The percentage of cattle that are found to have such abnormalities is called the condemnation rate, and annual condemnation rates are kept in public databases.
The authors pooled data from various such databases for various animal industries before and after the introduction of GMO into animal feed:
Livestock production statistics for the US before and after the introduction of GE feed crops in 1986 are summarized in Table 4. In all industries, there were no obvious perturbations in production parameters over time. The available health parameters, somatic cell count (SCC; an indicator of mastitis and inflammation in the udder) in the dairy data set (Figure 1), postmortem condemnation rates in cattle (Figure 1), and postmortem condemnation rates and mortality in the poultry industry (Figure 2), all decreased (i.e., improved) over time.
So, multiple health parameters for multiple animals, including billions of animals over about 15 years showed no adverse effects from the rapid introduction of GMO animal feed. If there were any significant adverse effects from GMO it seems reasonable that it would easily show up in this data.
The reason for the background improvement in health parameters is likely due to improved genetics and handling. This slow improvement over time continued without change through the introduction of GMO.
http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/19-years-of-feeding-animals-gmo-shows-no-harm/
I am glad GMO's do not hurt the animals that we eat. My concern is the results of humans eating products from GMO fed animals.
I expect it will be years before the science can speak to GMO's impact one way or another on human life/health.
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I'm the first t admit that I don't understand the intricacies of GMO foods. So not a food chemist. I took Organic Chem and the one thing I learned best was that the less Organic Chem there is in my world, the happier I am. I remember almost none and couldn't draw any of that crap today. I don't even want to consider relearning it. Shiver up my spine, just thinking about it.The_Invisible_Boy wrote: »By reading some of the comments above, its obvious some don't understand GMOs AT ALL. They have nothing to do with evolution, hybridizing or cross pollinating. 21 years is not long enough to know if there are any repercussions. Saying they have been thoroughly tested by the FDA or USDA is ludacris. Remember when transfat was so much better for you than that nasty real butter? How many drugs get recalled after killing or harming people that the FDA has approved as safe? Do you realize how many people in charge of the FDA or USDA are ex Monsanto, Syrgenta or DuPont executives? The claim they are feeding the world is none sense. The world already produces more than enough food and will continue to. We don't have a food shortage; we have a problem with availability by location. I'm not saying they are bad or good, I'm saying people should have a choice to know what they are putting in their bodies, especially since GMOs are relatively new to consumption. My biggest problem with genetic modification is when they do stuff like modifying corn to be immune to RoundUp so they can drowned the food we eat with it while harming the environment substantially. The thought of them wanting to create plants that produce seeds that will not germinate, forcing you to buy their labratory seed, is very scary and has the potential to create an honest to god real end of the world scenario. I personally don't want to ingest glyphosate or any other herbicide or pesticide.
Absolutely not the Queen of GMOs.
Smart people who truly understand a subject are able to talk about it in ways that other people who know zip about that subject will understand. Assuming they have the same first language, they can anticipate what others might not know and explain it without using jargon that people won't understand. People who spoke a different language often have much more trouble because they don't always know what words others may or may not know, but a person who speaks the same language, is bright and knows their subject well can discuss it with others without getting super-technical.
So, assuming English is your first language, you should be able to tell me why the GMO foods are harmful in a way I can easily understand without being a food chemist. You didn't do that in the paragraph I quoted. The only possible issue raised is who would have control of the food, but that's not really the same as saying that the food itself is somehow dangerous.
Why is the food itself dangerous?
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GaleHawkins wrote: »FunkyTobias wrote: »GaleHawkins wrote: »I guess they were just off my radar until some recent reading on the subject. I expect it will take years before science will prove where they are bad, neutral or good for animal usage.
You guess wrong
Van Eenennaam and Young then approach the question of GMO feeding from a different angle. Since 1996 90-95% of animal feed in the US has been GMO. Prior to 1996 0% was GMO. This offers the opportunity for a large observational study to see if the rapid and thorough introduction of GMO feed in the US resulted in any adverse health effects for the animals.
This data is observational, meaning the authors are looking at data collected out there in the world and not part of any controlled prospective experiment. Observational data is always subject to unanticipated confounding factors. However, robust observational data is still highly useful, and has the potential to detect any clear signals.
In this case the data is particularly useful for a couple of reasons. First, the number of animals for which there is data is massive – in the billions per year. Second, the industry actually carefully tracks certain outcomes, as it is necessary or critical to their business.
For example, cattle are examined both premortem and postmortem for any abnormalities, such as tumors or signs of infection or other illness. Any sign of illness and that cow is not approved for meat. The percentage of cattle that are found to have such abnormalities is called the condemnation rate, and annual condemnation rates are kept in public databases.
The authors pooled data from various such databases for various animal industries before and after the introduction of GMO into animal feed:
Livestock production statistics for the US before and after the introduction of GE feed crops in 1986 are summarized in Table 4. In all industries, there were no obvious perturbations in production parameters over time. The available health parameters, somatic cell count (SCC; an indicator of mastitis and inflammation in the udder) in the dairy data set (Figure 1), postmortem condemnation rates in cattle (Figure 1), and postmortem condemnation rates and mortality in the poultry industry (Figure 2), all decreased (i.e., improved) over time.
So, multiple health parameters for multiple animals, including billions of animals over about 15 years showed no adverse effects from the rapid introduction of GMO animal feed. If there were any significant adverse effects from GMO it seems reasonable that it would easily show up in this data.
The reason for the background improvement in health parameters is likely due to improved genetics and handling. This slow improvement over time continued without change through the introduction of GMO.
http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/19-years-of-feeding-animals-gmo-shows-no-harm/
I am glad GMO's do not hurt the animals that we eat. My concern is the results of humans eating products from GMO fed animals.
I expect it will be years before the science can speak to GMO's impact one way or another on human life/health.
Why would animals fed GMOs have any different effect on human diets. Can you even begin to hypothesize a causative mechanism where slight amounts of DNA or proteins expressed from that DNA, both of which take a stomach acid bath, cause the animal itself to have different characteristics? That is like thinking of GMO as some kind of impurity, something that can be transferred. That isn't how it works. That isn't science.0 -
Re-reading this, other fact you missed besides the fact that terminator seeds aren't on the market...The_Invisible_Boy wrote: »By reading some of the comments above, its obvious some don't understand GMOs AT ALL. They have nothing to do with evolution, hybridizing or cross pollinating. 21 years is not long enough to know if there are any repercussions. Saying they have been thoroughly tested by the FDA or USDA is ludacris. Remember when transfat was so much better for you than that nasty real butter? How many drugs get recalled after killing or harming people that the FDA has approved as safe? Do you realize how many people in charge of the FDA or USDA are ex Monsanto, Syrgenta or DuPont executives? The claim they are feeding the world is none sense. The world already produces more than enough food and will continue to. We don't have a food shortage; we have a problem with availability by location. I'm not saying they are bad or good, I'm saying people should have a choice to know what they are putting in their bodies, especially since GMOs are relatively new to consumption. My biggest problem with genetic modification is when they do stuff like modifying corn to be immune to RoundUp so they can drowned the food we eat with it while harming the environment substantially. The thought of them wanting to create plants that produce seeds that will not germinate, forcing you to buy their labratory seed, is very scary and has the potential to create an honest to god real end of the world scenario. I personally don't want to ingest glyphosate or any other herbicide or pesticide.
1. No one is forced to buy one single seed. Farmers have options in who they buy from. Always. The seed sales market is actually a lot more competitive than a lot of markets in America. You might want to talk to a farmer sometime.
2. Saving seeds against contract has nothing to do with GMOs. People have legally been allowed to patent seeds and prevent replanting since the 1930s.
3. Most farmers don't want to reuse their seeds. They want to farm, not hybridize plants. Buying seeds is more cost effective. Again, you might want to talk to a farmer sometime.
4. What's the actual end game of the monopoly here? Intellectual property only works so long as people honor the law - if Monsanto somehow owned all rights to all corn and wanted to charge $500,000 a seed, people would just ignore the law. Even allowing for terminator seed development, you seriously think one company is going to round up (ha, see what I did there) all non-terminator seeds and prevent people from growing other varieties?0 -
GaleHawkins wrote: »FunkyTobias wrote: »GaleHawkins wrote: »I guess they were just off my radar until some recent reading on the subject. I expect it will take years before science will prove where they are bad, neutral or good for animal usage.
You guess wrong
Van Eenennaam and Young then approach the question of GMO feeding from a different angle. Since 1996 90-95% of animal feed in the US has been GMO. Prior to 1996 0% was GMO. This offers the opportunity for a large observational study to see if the rapid and thorough introduction of GMO feed in the US resulted in any adverse health effects for the animals.
This data is observational, meaning the authors are looking at data collected out there in the world and not part of any controlled prospective experiment. Observational data is always subject to unanticipated confounding factors. However, robust observational data is still highly useful, and has the potential to detect any clear signals.
In this case the data is particularly useful for a couple of reasons. First, the number of animals for which there is data is massive – in the billions per year. Second, the industry actually carefully tracks certain outcomes, as it is necessary or critical to their business.
For example, cattle are examined both premortem and postmortem for any abnormalities, such as tumors or signs of infection or other illness. Any sign of illness and that cow is not approved for meat. The percentage of cattle that are found to have such abnormalities is called the condemnation rate, and annual condemnation rates are kept in public databases.
The authors pooled data from various such databases for various animal industries before and after the introduction of GMO into animal feed:
Livestock production statistics for the US before and after the introduction of GE feed crops in 1986 are summarized in Table 4. In all industries, there were no obvious perturbations in production parameters over time. The available health parameters, somatic cell count (SCC; an indicator of mastitis and inflammation in the udder) in the dairy data set (Figure 1), postmortem condemnation rates in cattle (Figure 1), and postmortem condemnation rates and mortality in the poultry industry (Figure 2), all decreased (i.e., improved) over time.
So, multiple health parameters for multiple animals, including billions of animals over about 15 years showed no adverse effects from the rapid introduction of GMO animal feed. If there were any significant adverse effects from GMO it seems reasonable that it would easily show up in this data.
The reason for the background improvement in health parameters is likely due to improved genetics and handling. This slow improvement over time continued without change through the introduction of GMO.
http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/19-years-of-feeding-animals-gmo-shows-no-harm/
I am glad GMO's do not hurt the animals that we eat. My concern is the results of humans eating products from GMO fed animals.
I expect it will be years before the science can speak to GMO's impact one way or another on human life/health.
Why would animals fed GMOs have any different effect on human diets. Can you even begin to hypothesize a causative mechanism where slight amounts of DNA or proteins expressed from that DNA, both of which take a stomach acid bath, cause the animal itself to have different characteristics? That is like thinking of GMO as some kind of impurity, something that can be transferred. That isn't how it works. That isn't science.
Xactly. When one adds new chemicals to animal feed as GMO's may do it can be a game changer. I am not so concerned about cows with a four compartment stomach but more so about eating chickens fed GMO grass grains.
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GaleHawkins wrote: »GaleHawkins wrote: »FunkyTobias wrote: »GaleHawkins wrote: »I guess they were just off my radar until some recent reading on the subject. I expect it will take years before science will prove where they are bad, neutral or good for animal usage.
You guess wrong
Van Eenennaam and Young then approach the question of GMO feeding from a different angle. Since 1996 90-95% of animal feed in the US has been GMO. Prior to 1996 0% was GMO. This offers the opportunity for a large observational study to see if the rapid and thorough introduction of GMO feed in the US resulted in any adverse health effects for the animals.
This data is observational, meaning the authors are looking at data collected out there in the world and not part of any controlled prospective experiment. Observational data is always subject to unanticipated confounding factors. However, robust observational data is still highly useful, and has the potential to detect any clear signals.
In this case the data is particularly useful for a couple of reasons. First, the number of animals for which there is data is massive – in the billions per year. Second, the industry actually carefully tracks certain outcomes, as it is necessary or critical to their business.
For example, cattle are examined both premortem and postmortem for any abnormalities, such as tumors or signs of infection or other illness. Any sign of illness and that cow is not approved for meat. The percentage of cattle that are found to have such abnormalities is called the condemnation rate, and annual condemnation rates are kept in public databases.
The authors pooled data from various such databases for various animal industries before and after the introduction of GMO into animal feed:
Livestock production statistics for the US before and after the introduction of GE feed crops in 1986 are summarized in Table 4. In all industries, there were no obvious perturbations in production parameters over time. The available health parameters, somatic cell count (SCC; an indicator of mastitis and inflammation in the udder) in the dairy data set (Figure 1), postmortem condemnation rates in cattle (Figure 1), and postmortem condemnation rates and mortality in the poultry industry (Figure 2), all decreased (i.e., improved) over time.
So, multiple health parameters for multiple animals, including billions of animals over about 15 years showed no adverse effects from the rapid introduction of GMO animal feed. If there were any significant adverse effects from GMO it seems reasonable that it would easily show up in this data.
The reason for the background improvement in health parameters is likely due to improved genetics and handling. This slow improvement over time continued without change through the introduction of GMO.
http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/19-years-of-feeding-animals-gmo-shows-no-harm/
I am glad GMO's do not hurt the animals that we eat. My concern is the results of humans eating products from GMO fed animals.
I expect it will be years before the science can speak to GMO's impact one way or another on human life/health.
Why would animals fed GMOs have any different effect on human diets. Can you even begin to hypothesize a causative mechanism where slight amounts of DNA or proteins expressed from that DNA, both of which take a stomach acid bath, cause the animal itself to have different characteristics? That is like thinking of GMO as some kind of impurity, something that can be transferred. That isn't how it works. That isn't science.
Xactly. When one adds new chemicals to animal feed as GMO's may do it can be a game changer. I am not so concerned about cows with a four compartment stomach but more so about eating chickens fed GMO grass grains.
You agreed with him, but you are saying the exact opposite. Can you please explain how you think a chicken would be affected by GMO grains?0 -
I don't keep up on current news, but gaining control of the food supply has been an effective means of controlling and killing people you don't like (or who don't like you) since the dawn of time.
Re-reading this, other fact you missed besides the fact that terminator seeds aren't on the market...The_Invisible_Boy wrote: »By reading some of the comments above, its obvious some don't understand GMOs AT ALL. They have nothing to do with evolution, hybridizing or cross pollinating. 21 years is not long enough to know if there are any repercussions. Saying they have been thoroughly tested by the FDA or USDA is ludacris. Remember when transfat was so much better for you than that nasty real butter? How many drugs get recalled after killing or harming people that the FDA has approved as safe? Do you realize how many people in charge of the FDA or USDA are ex Monsanto, Syrgenta or DuPont executives? The claim they are feeding the world is none sense. The world already produces more than enough food and will continue to. We don't have a food shortage; we have a problem with availability by location. I'm not saying they are bad or good, I'm saying people should have a choice to know what they are putting in their bodies, especially since GMOs are relatively new to consumption. My biggest problem with genetic modification is when they do stuff like modifying corn to be immune to RoundUp so they can drowned the food we eat with it while harming the environment substantially. The thought of them wanting to create plants that produce seeds that will not germinate, forcing you to buy their labratory seed, is very scary and has the potential to create an honest to god real end of the world scenario. I personally don't want to ingest glyphosate or any other herbicide or pesticide.
1. No one is forced to buy one single seed. Farmers have options in who they buy from. Always. The seed sales market is actually a lot more competitive than a lot of markets in America. You might want to talk to a farmer sometime.
2. Saving seeds against contract has nothing to do with GMOs. People have legally been allowed to patent seeds and prevent replanting since the 1930s.
3. Most farmers don't want to reuse their seeds. They want to farm, not hybridize plants. Buying seeds is more cost effective. Again, you might want to talk to a farmer sometime.
4. What's the actual end game of the monopoly here? Intellectual property only works so long as people honor the law - if Monsanto somehow owned all rights to all corn and wanted to charge $500,000 a seed, people would just ignore the law. Even allowing for terminator seed development, you seriously think one company is going to round up (ha, see what I did there) all non-terminator seeds and prevent people from growing other varieties?
Personally, I don't have the heart to watch the news. It's just too upsetting. But last I heard, it was still going on.
The ones who control the food control everything. So, I can see people who have the heart for it paying attention to all that.
It just doesn't make the food itself bad.
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GaleHawkins wrote: »GaleHawkins wrote: »FunkyTobias wrote: »GaleHawkins wrote: »I guess they were just off my radar until some recent reading on the subject. I expect it will take years before science will prove where they are bad, neutral or good for animal usage.
You guess wrong
Van Eenennaam and Young then approach the question of GMO feeding from a different angle. Since 1996 90-95% of animal feed in the US has been GMO. Prior to 1996 0% was GMO. This offers the opportunity for a large observational study to see if the rapid and thorough introduction of GMO feed in the US resulted in any adverse health effects for the animals.
This data is observational, meaning the authors are looking at data collected out there in the world and not part of any controlled prospective experiment. Observational data is always subject to unanticipated confounding factors. However, robust observational data is still highly useful, and has the potential to detect any clear signals.
In this case the data is particularly useful for a couple of reasons. First, the number of animals for which there is data is massive – in the billions per year. Second, the industry actually carefully tracks certain outcomes, as it is necessary or critical to their business.
For example, cattle are examined both premortem and postmortem for any abnormalities, such as tumors or signs of infection or other illness. Any sign of illness and that cow is not approved for meat. The percentage of cattle that are found to have such abnormalities is called the condemnation rate, and annual condemnation rates are kept in public databases.
The authors pooled data from various such databases for various animal industries before and after the introduction of GMO into animal feed:
Livestock production statistics for the US before and after the introduction of GE feed crops in 1986 are summarized in Table 4. In all industries, there were no obvious perturbations in production parameters over time. The available health parameters, somatic cell count (SCC; an indicator of mastitis and inflammation in the udder) in the dairy data set (Figure 1), postmortem condemnation rates in cattle (Figure 1), and postmortem condemnation rates and mortality in the poultry industry (Figure 2), all decreased (i.e., improved) over time.
So, multiple health parameters for multiple animals, including billions of animals over about 15 years showed no adverse effects from the rapid introduction of GMO animal feed. If there were any significant adverse effects from GMO it seems reasonable that it would easily show up in this data.
The reason for the background improvement in health parameters is likely due to improved genetics and handling. This slow improvement over time continued without change through the introduction of GMO.
http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/19-years-of-feeding-animals-gmo-shows-no-harm/
I am glad GMO's do not hurt the animals that we eat. My concern is the results of humans eating products from GMO fed animals.
I expect it will be years before the science can speak to GMO's impact one way or another on human life/health.
Why would animals fed GMOs have any different effect on human diets. Can you even begin to hypothesize a causative mechanism where slight amounts of DNA or proteins expressed from that DNA, both of which take a stomach acid bath, cause the animal itself to have different characteristics? That is like thinking of GMO as some kind of impurity, something that can be transferred. That isn't how it works. That isn't science.
Xactly. When one adds new chemicals to animal feed as GMO's may do it can be a game changer. I am not so concerned about cows with a four compartment stomach but more so about eating chickens fed GMO grass grains.
You agreed with him, but you are saying the exact opposite. Can you please explain how you think a chicken would be affected by GMO grains?
Changing the feed stock, adding hormones, etc is just a variable. Without research the impact of changing any variable is unknown without scientific research. To say GMO's are safe without research is just a wild guess. They may or may not be safe for human consumption. Humans directly eating modified grains is more of a concern personally.
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