Especially when health and profits are concerned!

And there is nothing wrong with either product. Fear mongering is not ok.

Business News Mar 20, 2:43 pm (ET)

FDA approves genetically engineered potatoes, apples as safe photo
BOISE, Idaho (AP) — Potatoes that won't bruise and apples that won't brown are a step closer to grocery store aisles. The Food and Drug Administration on Friday approved the genetically engineered foods, saying they are "as safe and nutritious...

Friday would be today?

You eat what you want. Heirloom fruits and veggies at this house by choice.

Why do GMO's kill butterflies? Science hasn't figured that out, but they are safe for us to eat.

Scanned at Goggle news just now.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1014945320

And from LBN last month.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1016114347

The first link is about McDonalds not buying GMO potatoes (even if they were to be approved.)

The second link is about government approving "for planting."

The OP is about FDA clearance for commercial sales and it is DEFINITELY LBN.

It's only LBN if you think a ridiculous technicality in the process is LBN. It's not.

A drug may be approved for animal testing, then for safety testing in humans, then for efficacy testing in humans and finally approved for commercial sale.

EACH one of those events is a separate LBN when it happens.

If they had been rejected, that would have been big news.

This is not news.

Each news imparts additional information.

Pushing such groundless fear mongering is unethical.

How would these products cause harm?

you what you should or should not eat. You do the same.

No one told you to eat GMOs. Plenty of people love to rant about GMOs, and love to tell people that they shouldn't eat them, despite the fact that there is no justification for such an admonition.

Arbitrary definitions that lead to strange fears are truly, well, slightly interesting, anyway.

It's sold in health food stores and is often labeled as organic because it meets the NOP organic standards.

It's a hybrid made commercially available via treatment with colchicine, which is used by the pharmaceutical industry to treat gout, and causes toxic side effects even in small doses. But of course it's all natural (even though nature could never produce it). No safety or environmental testing required (unlike GMO).

Or how about Mutation Enhanced Technologies for Agriculture (META)? It involves spraying plants with sodium azide or placing them next to a gamma ray source like cobalt-60 in order to produce genome mutations. To date, 3218 mutant varietals have been produced by this method, none of which require safety or environmental testing like GMO, and all are eligible for organic certification. Nothing more natural than that, eh?
http://mvgs.iaea.org/Search.aspx

What's so funny?

So one has to wonder where the gubbermint is hiding all the bodies.

What is bad about GMO applications is intellectual property rights that can squeeze growers of non-GMO crops and/or making the farms dependent upon a specific fertilizer which can only be obtained from the manufacturer at a higher cost.

GMO is no different from cross-breeding utilized by farmers for thousands of years except that it is done in a lab in a far shorter period of time. What is bad is the commercial monopolies it may create.

Farmers don't have to choose to grow GMOs. The question is why some people do not want them to have the choice to use them if they want to do so.

Corporate malfeasance is one thing, but it is not a GMO only piece of any puzzle. All types of seeds and farming face the same problems in that area.

We have known for a couple decades!

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=120016

Study: GM Corn Harms Monarch Butterflies
W A S H I N G T O N, Aug. 21
Iowa State University researchers said today they found more evidence that pollen from bioengineered corn could be deadly for Monarch butterflies, prompting environmentalists to renew demands for tighter restrictions on the crop.

The Iowa study published in the journal Oecologia comes at a time when the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has launched its own review of the safety of corn and cotton plants modified to contain a pest-fighting gene.

The Clinton administration has faced growing pressure during the past year from consumer and environmental groups, as well as some U.S. trading partners, who say not enough is yet known about the long-term safety of biotech crops. The seed industry and agribusiness contend that gene-spliced crops have undergone thousands of tests and pose no more safety risks than conventional crops.

Iowa State researchers John Obrycki and Laura Hansen said their research showed Monarch butterfly caterpillars were seven times more likely to die when they ate milkweed plants carrying pollen from Bt corn, compared to conventional corn.

FULL story at link.

Primarily because the researchers fed the caterpillars levels of GM pollen impossible to obtain in nature to obtain an increased death rate.

http://www.startribune.com/local/143017765.html

Article by: JOSEPHINE MARCOTTY , Star Tribune Updated: March 16, 2012 - 9:37 PM
Herbicide-resistant crops can withstand Roundup, which kills monarchs' preferred nesting plant.

Genetically engineered corn and soybeans make it easy for farmers to eradicate weeds, including the long-lived and unruly milkweed.

But they might be putting the monarch butterfly in peril.

The rapid spread of herbicide-resistant crops has coincided with -- and may explain -- the dramatic decline in monarch numbers that has troubled some naturalists over the past decade, according to a new study by researchers at the University of Minnesota and Iowa State University.

Between 1999 and 2010, the same period in which so-called GMO crops became the norm for farmers, the number of monarch eggs declined by an estimated 81 percent across the Midwest, the researchers say. That's because milkweed -- the host plant for the eggs and caterpillars produced by one of one of the most gaudy and widely recognized of all North American butterflies -- has nearly disappeared from farm fields, they found.

FULL story at link.

The study “does not resolve the debate,” cautioned a researcher at the University of Maryland. Drought and other habitat damage are likely culprits, too.

The first study, from 1997, stated that GM pollen was DIRECTLY killing caterpillars because they were consuming GM pollen that fell on leaves of milkweed plants growing next to the fields. This was discredited by subsequent studies.

The more recent study you just posted stated that caterpillars are now starving to death because all the milkweed plants that used to grow on field edges have been killed by applications of Round-Up. This is supported by subsequent studies.

The end result is the same, but the causative agent is different.

BTW, thanks for reminding me to get some milkweed seeds started for planting this spring around the yard; I'd almost forgotten about the envelope of them in my seed bin.

Common ground.

But isn't the only cause either.

Gets in the plant tissues and then kills organisms feeding on the plants

Crystal Gammon and Environmental Health News, Scientific American. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/weed-whacking-herbicide-p/ Jun 23, 2009

Truthout. http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/25426-one-little-piggy-had-birth-defects-is-monsantos-roundup-to-blame. Aug. 8, 2014

“Studies conducted on rats and rabbits since the 1980s have shown an astonishing spectrum of birth defects associated with glyphosate, including absent kidneys, missing lobes of the lungs, enlarged hearts, ventricular septal defects (holes in the heart), extra ribs, and deformed and absent bones of the skull, spine, ribs, sternum and limbs.”

I just prefer my food to come from farm, not lab work.

http://www.honeycrisp.com/honeycrisp.html

HONEYCRISP HISTORY

Honeycrisp apple trees were derived from a 1960 cross of Macoun and Honeygold, at the University of Minnesota apple breeding program. The University was looking to develop winter hardy cultivars with high fruit quality. The original Honeycrisp apple seedling was planted in 1962 at the University of Minnesota Horticultural Research Center. In 1974 it was excepted as a possible new and exciting variety. Honeycrisp then know and evaluated as MN 1711 was tested at locations Minnesota, Michigan and here in New York at the Cornell Research Station in Geneva. In 1982, research scientist Dave Bedford rediscovered the tree and really loved the apples. As the story is told "He and Researcher James Luby went back to the records that had been kept on "1711." According to Luby, its data sheet had "DISCARD" scrawled across it." In 1988 a plant patented was applied for and in 1991 the apple we know as Honeycrisp was released for commercial propagation by the nurseries around the Country. Now Honeycrisp apples are known around the World.

is known to cause cell damage at concentrations 100,000x more dilute than shelved product. Go ahead and eat this toxic substance through the food chain and let us know when the cancer shows up or your children are born with birth defects

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22331240

http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/2176082/deformities_sickness_livestock_deaths_the_real_cost_of_glyphosate_gm_animal_feed.html

Crystal Gammon and Environmental Health News, Scientific American. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/weed-whacking-herbicide-p/ Jun 23, 2009

Truthout. http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/25426-one-little-piggy-had-birth-defects-is-monsantos-roundup-to-blame. Aug. 8, 2014

“Studies conducted on rats and rabbits since the 1980s have shown an astonishing spectrum of birth defects associated with glyphosate, including absent kidneys, missing lobes of the lungs, enlarged hearts, ventricular septal defects (holes in the heart), extra ribs, and deformed and absent bones of the skull, spine, ribs, sternum and limbs.”

and get back to me when you have cancer and/or Parkinson's

I do love me a good apple and potato. Not together though, that's gross.

Absolutely.

I'll stick w/what I've got around here.

GMO FREE ZONE!!!

I'm looking forward to trying them since they won't be sprayed by that anti-oxident. Should taste better.

Umm Umm good!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_R._Taylor

and so on. These revolving door people are in high positions, recruited from industries like Big Pharma, Big Oil/Mining/Logging and Big Agrichemical. It goes on and on. O needs to get busy getting these a-holes out and real research chemists, environmentalists, and organic farmers/ranchers IN

What could possibly go wrong... wrong... wrong...

There are hundreds of articles about this. IF they don't know why it kills butterflies, what don't they know about what it does to people, other animals, & plants in the food chain?


http://www.naturalnews.com/049067_monarch_butterflies_GMOs_Congress.html#

Wednesday, March 18, 2015 by: J. D. Heyes
Tags: monarch butterflies, GMOs, Congress

(NaturalNews) Dozens of House Democrats have signed onto a letter sent to President Obama claiming that the spread of GM crops is leading to the death of monarch butterflies.

The letter,[PDF] authored by Rep. Chellie Pingree of Maine, says that the butterflies are "in peril of being lost to the history books" in large part because of the "virtual eradication" of milkweed plants from their primary breeding grounds in the Midwest.

The milkweed eradication, the letter states, has come primarily from the "widespread spraying of herbicides in agricultural areas" where the plants were once bountiful.

"With the advent of herbicide-resistant genetically engineered crops, the use of herbicides like glyphosate has increased..." dramatically, from 20 million pounds per year in 1992 to more than 250 million pounds by 2011, said the letter.

FULL story at link.

Thanks for the thread, Omaha Steve.

I'd like to buy some and plant them in my yard for the butterflies.

I'd also give them out to friends and relatives and ask them to do likewise. Maybe throw some in empty lots etc.

http://www.amazon.com/Butterflyweed-Seed-Balls-Asclepias-tuberosa/dp/B00GZU8HOA/ref=sr_1_13?ie=UTF8&qid=1426894107&sr=8-13&keywords=milkweed+seeds

This was in GD a couple weeks ago: http://www.livemonarch.com/free-milkweed-seeds.htm

Live Monarch will send 15+ Butterfly Garden seeds including Milkweed and growing instructions even if you can not afford a contribution just mail us a self addressed stamped envelope, one per household. A save the Monarch contribution is greatly appreciated to help offset the cost of the many seeds we give away, personally plant and plants we provide to schools.

One dollar goes a long way to help Monarchs, and we will send 50+ seeds per dollar as a thank you. If you need more seeds, send a larger contribution with your written request. (These same seed packs sell all over the web for $2 - $4 for only a few seeds). We send out two Northern Varieties called Syriaca and Speciosa which can survive the winters at the end of the growing season, and Asclepias Curassavica (southern milkweed / red and yellow flowers) to appropriate areas. It is a favorite egg-laying plant which grows quickly and will sprout many seed pods. From time to time we may have other types and do our best to send them back to the regions where they were gathered. Just request the type you want with the drop down menus below. Our staff will choose the appropriate type if you prefer. Please include a small note below as well if you have a special request. We read every one and do our best to meet your needs. Please give what you can so we can provide materials to as many as possible.

To get seeds right now use the "Pay Now" button below. Use the drop down menus to choose the best choices and include a note if necessary, then click PAY NOW for the secure online form, where you can submit your information safely.

To make an online contribution at the same time just use the drop down menus and select to share a little half or most of your seed purchase with others. We send seeds every time with our thanks unless instructed not to. You are the most important part of this Campaign, every seed you plant and share is important and we can only ensure the Magic of the Monarchs one seed at a time.

At different levels of contribution we can offer the items below as thank you gifts. At $3.49 it is 150 seeds and a complete information pack delivered to your door. At $20 we send 1000 seeds for your region and a personalized letter. Use the links to request the type of seeds you want or ask us to pick for you. We have redesigned this quick check out to include more options and hope you help us continue to ensure that we all have the FREE education and low cost resources to Save the Monarch Migration. Thank you, LMF STAFF.

You will receive seeds and full color Monarch rearing instruction sheets, milkweed growing instructions and our heartfelt thanks. There are no butterflies in your return envelope. The information sheet is preprinted for you to keep as a reference sheet and to share the education to help Monarchs and butterflies in every life stage.

What a wonderful website. If we all expend just a little effort we can save the monarch. I placed an order and with any luck I'll be seeing milkweeds around every corner!

In the case of the apples, they identified the gene that produces the polyphenols that turn apples brown. Once the gene was identified, they located varieties of apples that produce the polyphenols at much lower rates and transferred the genes from those apples to other apple species. This is fundamentally the same kind of same-species crossbreeding that farmers have been using to create new varieties for nearly ten thousand years. The only difference is that the researchers transferred the genes in a laboratory instead of spending years crossbreeding varieties in a greenhouse to get the traits they want.

This is a fundamentally different thing than researchers inserting artificial genes to make crops resist certain poisons, or inserting genes from fish to make a tomato taste better.

What makes a GMO a GMO is the technology used for extracting and inserting genes, and that technology itself has problems.

Show me one single study demonstrating any sort of danger from same species gene transfer. Just one. I'll wait.

The problems in GMO production, whether real or imagined, stem from the insertion of genes from differing species, or genes that are artificially generated in a lab. In this case, we're talking about taking a naturally occurring gene from one variety of apple and transferring it to another variety of the same species. You could get the exact same interaction by planting both varieties next to each other and letting the bees go at them. Using a lab to transfer the genes you want, instead of waiting for the bees and dumb luck to hit the same combination for you, carries no inherent danger whatsoever.

They used to think the surrounding dna was "junk dna", harmless filler that couldn't possibly have any effect at all.

The apples and potatoes still bruise, they just don't turn brown where they're bruised.
The only reason they want to sell these is to deceive people into thinking they are buying produce which isn't bruised.

Oxidizing polyphenols modify the taste and texture of an apple, making it less edible. The gene transfer in these apples reduces the polyphenols responsible for browning. They aren't making the browning less visible, they're actually reducing the browning.

Where does that graph come from? It doesn't mean anything on it's own.

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2014/03/taleb-shreds-gmos.html

I was going to post this, too.
What's interesting is that even though I also oppose nuclear energy, Taleb ultimately considers GMOs more dangerous than nuclear.

http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/2176082/deformities_sickness_livestock_deaths_the_real_cost_of_glyphosate_gm_animal_feed.html

Crystal Gammon and Environmental Health News, Scientific American. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/weed-whacking-herbicide-p/ Jun 23, 2009

Truthout. http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/25426-one-little-piggy-had-birth-defects-is-monsantos-roundup-to-blame. Aug. 8, 2014

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/weed-whacking-herbicide-p/

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22331240

http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/tell-obama-to-cease-fda

I imagine a beautiful apple that tastes all rotten

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