This Supermarket "Health Food" Killed These Baby Rats in Three Weeks

[Chris Coles]

Re: This Supermarket "Health Food" Killed These Baby Rats in Three Weeks

Yep. Using more herbicide because you've engineered a plant that will tolerate it isn't a good thing.

I'd be very concerned about coding for insecticides in GMO food if the insecticides in question were of the nerve poison variety, with general toxicity. ....... Something producing the Bt protein might eventually become ubiquitous, and although it is claimed that Bt proteins are very insect-specific, I suspect there'd be some danger of mutation and eventually killing ....... humans??? in the environment that we'd rather not.

Changing one word says it all; I am sure you will all agree.

[ASH]

Re: This Supermarket "Health Food" Killed These Baby Rats in Three Weeks

Yep. Using more herbicide because you've engineered a plant that will tolerate it isn't a good thing.

I'd be very concerned about coding for insecticides in GMO food if the insecticides in question were of the nerve poison variety, with general toxicity. However, I gather from a web search that the insecticide coded for in GMO corn is likely a protein normally produced by the bacteria bacillus thuringiensis, or Bt. There should be no health problem for humans, even if gut bacteria started producing the Bt protein, because this particular insecticide is highly selective and only attacks insects with alkaline digestive tracts. Apparently, the protein interferes with digestion for this type of organism. On the other hand, however harmless to humans, the transfer to gut bacteria would be more generally troubling, because the long-term implications of passing these genes around in nature would be difficult to control or predict. Something producing the Bt protein might eventually become ubiquitous, and although it is claimed that Bt proteins are very insect-specific, I suspect there'd be some danger of mutation and eventually killing insects in the environment that we'd rather not.

Changing one word says it all; I am sure you will all agree.

I don't know about that. The insect-killing proteins produced by Bt only work on bugs with alkaline digestive tracts. I imagine it would be quite a stretch to get to something that would attack our (acidic) digestive system, although I admit I haven't the knowledge of biochemistry to offer an informed opinion. My uninformed guess is that the difference in digestive tract chemistry is such that the gene that currently codes for Bt protein is probably no closer to producing a human toxin than any other bacterial gene that codes for a non-human-toxic substance. Insofar as bacteria are constantly swapping genetic material (plasmids) -- and are already subject to mutation -- I don't see why this possibility would be a hazard specific to GMO foods.

[Serge_Tomiko]

Re: This Supermarket "Health Food" Killed These Baby Rats in Three Weeks

The earth cannot support 6 billion people, most of whom are of subnormal intelligence and breed like rabbits. Billions will die in the not so distant future. This is a pretty good attempt at preventing that inevitability.

[Starving Steve]

Re: This Supermarket "Health Food" Killed These Baby Rats in Three Weeks

Maybe, but doesn't it also beg a measured dose of skeptism since the website that is publishing this article is in the business of selling non-GM food?

Proper science does not have a hidden agenda of any kind, so the way this study was handled, (i.e, to promote the selling of non-GM foods) makes me skeptical, too. This reminds me of Christian science or creation science or religious science: the so-called, "scientific studies" are made to suit the outcomes desired.

We just went through this kind of junk science with the AGW hypothesis of Al Gore: Not that an AGW-hypothesis was taboo for science to look into, but it was when Al Gore claimed that the issue of AGW was "already settled by a consensus of scientists" that the warning flags were flying. And then Delingpole, in his checking of the science on AGW, found tampering with the raw data on temperature to make the climate data fit the AGW-hypothesis, whereas the data would otherwise disprove the hypothesis. ( London, Evening Telegraph, Jan 25, 2010 )

So now the warning flags are flying on GM-food research. And why use baby rats to make an inference to human health-risk, especially when baby rats are notorious for developing cancers for all kinds of reasons? Again, the warning flags are flying about junk-science or junk-research made to fit a pre-determined outcome; i.e, to try to link human cancer-risk to rat cancer-risk supposedly co-related to eating GM-foods.

I am lost, as usual, so let's play the game, "convince me". Why should I believe cancers in baby rats, cancers which are common in all baby rats, regardless of what the baby rats eat, are cancers which are linked to a human health-risk from eating GM-foods?

I'll stay after class.

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: This Supermarket "Health Food" Killed These Baby Rats in Three Weeks

Genetic modification is engineering -- not magic

It has an engineering element. That does not necessarily make it simple, nor its application necessarily morally neutral.

Good engineering requires integrity. It requires respecting the results and limitations of the technologies in use.

When engineering is distorted for evil purposes, that engineering was involved in no defense.

However, I gather from a web search that the insecticide coded for in GMO corn is likely a protein normally produced by the bacteria bacillus thuringiensis, or Bt. There should be no health problem for humans, ...

Try another web search, this time for bt cotton toxicity. Consider for example the article Monsanto’s Bt Cotton Kills the Soil as Well as Farmers, which came up when I did that search. BT cotton is apparently destroying essential bacteria in the soil, which could lead in a few years to dead soil, unable to grow food, or cotton. I also see repeated claims from India of sheep and goats dying, after grazing on BT cotton.

Engineering it may be, but perhaps engineering with a shotgun, not a scalpel, and driven by the sometimes rather evil motives of a few large corporations.

Two other GMO modifications besides this "BT" one have been "round-up ready" resistance in our major food grains, and the "terminator" gene, which makes seeds from such plants infertile, forcing farmers to purchase new seeds each year. These modifications seem even less defensible than the BT one. The combination of these technologies, along with patent protection for these modifications and regulatory capture by Monsanto and others of major governments has led to a situation in which the harm outweighs the benefits, for all but a few.