I can't share something based off the works of someone who is not within the scientific community that has been peer reviewed and substantiated through a majority of those reviews. This isn't to say Jeffrey Smith (the author of the books in question) isn't accurate or relevant... but without good scientific methods being applied AND being peer reviewed, it becomes a independent opinion piece instead of something that has been critically reviewed and endorsed.

And I do not know if GMO's are actually a problem or not. I would think they may be.

Tell me Veilex, are you comfortable with the level of independent scientific study/research and scrutiny that was given to human and farm animal health concerns of consuming GMO foods prior to their introduction to our collective food table?

I'm dubious at best, regarding GMOs. However, as I stated before, a study that does not use the scientific method and peer review process, is quite frankly, an opinion piece. In short: Peer review or it didn't happen.

A study MUST follow good scientific method AND be peer reviewed, otherwise its just propaganda and junk science.

... about your position on GMOs. What I did was ask if you were comfortable with the level of independent scientific inquiry into the health concerns of consuming GMO foods prior to their introduction. Can't help noticing you chose not to answer my question.

Why is that Veilex?

it has little to no bearing on my comment regarding this specific video, which is based on non-peer-reviewed non-scientific-method based research. You want to make it a broader argument... but that's not what this about. This is about this specific video's merits. Show me something with good scientific method being used, and I'll embrace it. Until then...

... hard to understand why anybody wouldn't be willing to answer it...

... unless of course, they had some kind of economic interest in GMOs they weren't disclosing -- such as a paid pro-GMO lobbyist, or somebody in Monsanto's PR department.

Resorting to GOP tactics?: If you can't win by propaganda, then smear your opponent? Really?

Instead of defending the video, you attempt to discredit me by trying to lump me in with the "enemy".
This tells me, you're incapable of actually defending the video and need to distract away from that issue.

I don't do anything in favor of GMO's for anyone. That means also, NOT propagating information that is unsubstantiated... specifically, information coming from Jeffrey Smith http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_M._Smith, who has no scientific background whatsoever.
Propagating unsubstantiated information only provides the pro GMO groups with ammunition. They can take these "studies" and muddy the waters around the truth. The likes of Monsanto have done enough ills to where we can identify concrete scientifically provable details, thereby giving us the strength of fact, and avoiding the pitfall of mischaracterization by the GOP and pro GMO crowds as propaganda.

For clarification purposes, I'm not saying its a bad video.
I am saying it holds no water in the scientific community.

Last edited Tue Mar 4, 2014, 06:10 PM - Edit history (1)

No one can defend this one video, but since I challenge the veracity of it, I am not only villainized, but I am suddenly required to answer questions... even though my challenge has gone unanswered? Not only that, but I am to answer questions we all know are framed for a broader argument that is not relevant to credibility of this singular video.

I think not.

At no point have I defended GMOs. In fact, if you'd bothered to actually look at what I've said, it'd be clear to you, and anyone else looking, that I'm anti GMO. But being anti GMO doesn't mean I'm going to blindly embrace every so-called study that comes down the pike. I expect actual real science to be done before I'll accept ANY study... not just on GMOs. This so-called study doesn't pass the sniff test... and NO ONE here has been able to show a shred of scientific data to support it! Its garbage. I will not dilute factual concerns with propagandistic BS... which is exactly what this video attempts to do.

If you want to buy into a non scientific-based study that has NO peer review whatsoever, then you, my friend, are part GMO problem by perpetuating junk science instead of factual science.

Show me one... just one... actual scientific-method-based study that has been peer reviewed by the scientific community that supports this video. If you're claims are true and this video is above reproach then that should easy for you.
If you can't be bothered to do something so simple as this, then I can't be bothered to deal with you any further.
I won't tolerate your or anyone else's zealotry on a topic this important.
Blind faith in anything is begging to walk off a cliff.
You need to wake up.

“You ARE defending GMOs. AND YOU STILL HAVE NOT ANSWERED THE QUESTION. WHY IS THAT?”

You haven’t been able to provide one shred of scientific evidence to support this video… why is that?

“You are asking for anti-GMO activists to swallow, whole, the idea that GMOs are not harmful when NO ONE HAS EVEN RESEARCHED THAT,”

I’ve neither stated nor implied this. You on the other hand have chosen to fix the parameters and details of the discussion to fit your argument. In other words: you’re putting words in my mouth. Don’t. I can speak myself, thanks.

“while REQUIRING those same people to present peer-reviewed evidence that they are harmful.”

Oh yes. How dare I require facts over opinion? Really? And I suppose you buy into everything you see on TV or the internet?

“But you're right: THIS TOPIC IS IMPORTANT.”

Yes, it is. Important enough to ignore junk science when it only serves to distract and discredit.

“It's important enough to NOT accept your NON RESEARCH (much less non-peer-reviewed research) that these are not harmful substances that you've already put into our food.”

Ahhhh! Congratulations! You have bought completely into the BS that I, personally, am the enemy…

“harmful substances that you've already put into our food”

Get Real.

“And you accuse us of having blind faith?”

When you act like a zealot following David Koresh and not bothering to fact check anything?
Yes. Yes I do.
You’ve failed to provide a single bit of scientific evidence to support your stance. You’ve joined your colleague in trying to place me as PRO GMO because I haven’t bought into this video as being scientifically relevant. The poster presented a video, but refuses to (or simply can’t) back it? Unacceptable.
If there is any shame to be had here, it belongs to you and the poster.
Regardless, as I said before, if you can’t provide scientific evidence supporting this single video,
Then I’m done with you.
In short: Peer review, or it didn’t happen.

“Where is the science to refute the video? THAT'S the question you should be asking."

that’s not how this works. If you state a position on science, and someone challenges your position on that science, it is incumbent upon you to provide your research to show that you’re not blowing smoke. You don’t get to say “prove me wrong”… you have to prove yourself right else you simply have zero credibility… and that’s exactly what is going on here. The video is being challenged, and neither you nor the poster has anything to show scientific validity. So the video has zero credibility. Done.

“You cannot expect people to accept large companies putting GMOs in our food with no testing, at all, of the safety of these products.”
I don’t… and they shouldn’t. GMO as a science is still very new and should be heavily questioned, in the same manner we do anything new and relatively unknown. But this is not about questioning the procedures of the testing processes that should be undertaken and enforced, particularly when dealing with something as potentially dangerous, and certainly unknown, as GMOs… this is about the veracity of this one video… it’s not me going out there and saying “GMOs are good mmmkay…”, I’ve already stated I’m dubious of GMOs… why that doesn’t sink in for you is beyond me. The problem is, there is no solid scientific evidence to support this video…and I’m not going to just give over to confirmation bias and say “It agrees with my doubts about GMOs and therefore must be true!!!”, because in the long run, it’d just undercut any real science that gets done!

“We should not have to prove that this crap is not harmful. The manufacturers should FIRST have to prove that it is not.”
I agree, wholeheartedly. But again, this has absolutely NOTHING to do with the veracity of the video!

“No one is personally attacking you, but your obvious refusal to answer a simple question is telling on you.”

You’re so focused in on my refusal to get sucked into a different argument that you’re missing the forest for the trees.
I’m not for GMOs. You keep insisting I am. Sorry, I know myself better than you. Monsanto disgusts me with all the foul deeds they’ve done. They created agent orange, destroying the lives of many a veteran, bullied countless businesses to carry their crap products (seed and pesticides), and they’ve cost many farmers and other environmentally friendly agro groups their livelihood!
I can quite literally go out and show you a scientific paper that raises concerns about GMOs destroying environmental diversity… and its even been peer reviewed. I embrace the hell out of that paper.
I will not embrace this video. It. Has. No. Scientific. Backing. End of story.
That is my whole gripe about it. That’s it.
If you doubt that, go back and take a look at all my prior posts. I’m consistent about it.

You cannot provide any scientific evidence to support your position.
You've tried to paint me as some form of associate to the GMO business.
You think propaganda trumps evidence and you're willing to take a page from the GOP
play book and attempt to demonize anyone who doesn't fit in with your questionable
notion of what is fact.

I've given you ample opportunity to provide something... anything!... to back up this video
instead, you've chosen to try to demonize me.

I will not accept this video, nor your mischaracterization of me. You want to continue being a
blind zealot about this video? You have my leave... I'm sure if you're unable to critically think
about this one video, then its probably a trend in your life.

I'm done with lack of logic and scientific backing.
I'm done with your attempts to slander me.
I'm done with you ignoring arguments that don't fit your rhetoric.
But most of all? I'm done with you.
You're no longer worth my time or effort.
Welcome to ignore.

"Tell me Veilex, are you comfortable with the level of independent scientific study/research and scrutiny that was given to human and farm animal health concerns of consuming GMO foods prior to their introduction to our collective food table?"

Yes.

We can only insert genes that code for proteins. If that protein is safe to eat from its original source, it is safe to eat in its new source.

... scientific inquiry done prior to the introduction of GMO's you're referring to. Thanks in advance.

Dangerously false. Chemistry is not a 1 + 1 = 2 affair.
It is highly complex, and frequently doesn't have those types of outcomes.

This topic. Provide that, and I'll answer whatever questions you have.

..had been as conscientious about demanding PROOF before they gave Monsanto the Go Ahead
to let these new, invasive organisms loose in our environment.
GMOs were "grandfathered" onto the list of "approved" because Monsanto said they really weren't that different for those found in nature.

If Monsanto can show me that they put a tomato and a salmon in the barn overnight, and they got together and produced and offspring,
I would come closer to believe their outrageous claim.

Whatever happened to this guy?
He would have made a good President.

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/collideascape/2013/05/14/leaky-brains-and-gmos/#.UxUFtfldVqU

When you people with no scientific background saying something, and publishing that thing, just because it follows poplar views, simply doesn't make it true. It is much akin to "I saw it on TV, so it must be true!"

I'm far from a GMO advocate. But I believe in calling a spade a spade.

The GMO issue doesn't become true or false on public opinion.

It becomes true or false on scientific research.

What a load. Like all those goddamned prescriptions drugs they end up snatching off the market, eh?

- Wake up. There is no ''peer-reviewed.'' There is only ''financial-reviewed.'' If it makes money, it's out there......

The FDA - Hazardous To Your Health?

FDA Ignoring Tainted Testing

Paid reviews are consistently done under by peer reviews... or the mysterious lack of review. Reality is that peer reviews are the golden standard... and that they far exceed paid reviews. They are what allow other scientists to follow the methods used by research publishers to discover if the results are in fact good results.

That said, the FDA has been getting infiltrated by the likes of Monsanto and ConAgra for years.
Most of those in the FDA need to be swept out of office.

You find conspiracy theory BS on the Internet and run with it? Really?

WOW!

"The same serious health problems found in lab animals..."

No repeatable experiment has show health problems related to GMO foods. NONE. Two papers were published that made the claim GMOs were bad for you, but they were both deeply flawed. One actually concluded a 10% solution of Round-up weed killer improved the health of male rats, but they didn't talk about that finding. The other showed that feeding pigs reduced stomach lining irritation in most cases, but chose to focus on the outliers.

The progressive movement must be a fact-based movement. If we turn on science, we are no better than creationists or global warming deniers.

... questioning GMO's are not the one's attacking science -- quite the opposite:

So how come there isn't a single pier-reviewed paper out there that backs up their concerns? If these people are so worried, why haven't they designed an experiment and tested their fears?

Look for facts, not fear-mongering.

... GMO's have never been scientifically demonstrated to be safe. Putting people at risk by using the general public as guinea pigs in the big GMO experiment and then screeching "you can't prove GMO's are unsafe" is no different than using Earth's atmosphere as an open sewer discharging whatever we want to into it and then crying "you can't prove human activity is contributing to climate change."

The corporations profiting from the damage being caused will ALWAYS claim "You can't prove we caused it." There are no exceptions to this.

"...GMO's have never been scientifically demonstrated to be safe."

That's not a fact. It's wrong. There have been thousands of papers published on GMOs and no repeatable experiment has shown they are unsafe. GMOs have been on the market for 20 years. The only time they've cause health problems was when a group of people were accidentally given GMO cattle feed. Humans can't digest cattle feed, even organic cattle feed.

"...screeching 'you can't prove GMO's are unsafe' is no different than..."

Claiming GMO have not been scientifically demonstrated to be safe is like claiming cigarettes have never been proven to cause cancer. All the evidence points to them being safe. How much more do you want?

You are wrong. Stop crapping on science.

Because Monsanto made sure the gmo is not labeled and there by making it impossible to study the long term effects. Wondered why these people where against labeling?

"we cannot prove the long term effects of gmo Because Monsanto made sure the gmo is not labeled..."

The two things have NOTHING to do with each other. Have you ever taken a science course in school?

To do long term study you need large sample and people taking gmo for a long term. If they can observe those who take gmo food and those who don't then we can establish the effects of gmo.
Can you tell me how else we can find the effects of gmo foods?

Again I ask, have you ever taken a science course in school?

In order to do a study, you need to have a control. You don't just ask people if the have eaten GMO food and assume you have the right answer.

You simply don't know what you are talking about. You are like a creationist who asks, "If humans came from monkeys, why are there still monkeys." The only point you have made is that you don't understand science.

I know what survey is and how studies are conducted. Don't resort to ridiculing and name calling. Tell me how you will do it. Don't dance around the subject and pretend you know everything while others are idiots here. I am trying to have a decent conversation and all you do it is spew "you guys don't know anything". Mr know it all, tell me how you will go about doing the experiment and show us your infinite wisdom.

And we have been eating GMO foods for 20+ years now -- Almost all of us eating GMO food all the time. Every soft drink, every corn chip, every hamburger, bacon strip or chicken "part", every breakfast cereal, in short almost every processed food.

When you fly over the USA, you see only two crops -- GMO corn and GMO soybeans. Much of the corn isn't for human or animal consumption, it is for ethanol. (Ethanol btw, reduces the life expectancy of all your small motors, like lawnmowers and 10% ethanol reduces your gas mileage by exactly 10% so ethanol is a terrible waste of farmland.)

WE are the long term study and the results are a nearly 10% increase in life expectancy:


There is an argument to be made against GMO farming but it has little to do with the health of the consumer.

You are making it so simple. What about better medicines, better knowledge of roundup. graph has upward slope starting from 70s when there were no GMOs. Btw, allergies have been increasing recently.

So many here are quick to dispose of the health risks of gmos. It is controversial even among scientists. I see posts here saying anyone who raises doubts on gmos are against science. And they think they know all about how genes work. Last I know, the science has not understood everything about genes.

between gut bacteria, early exposure to potential allergens and allergies.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/08/03/food.allergies.er.gut/

The easiest problem to document and understand about GMOs is that they rely on petroleum and therefore are setting us up for famines. The problem for agriculture and by extension all of us, is that the world is going to run out of petroleum. The price of food is very low right now but it is tied entirely to oil prices. As demand for oil exceeds production the price of both gasoline and food will spike.

We grow GMO corn using petroleum so that we can put ethanol into gasoline so we are using petroleum to grow an alternative to petroleum. How could that possibly be the answer to the end of petroleum? Especially when ethanol is worthless in terms of MPG (10% ethanol = 10% reduction in mileage).

The original poster claimed there were negative health effects to eating GMOs. Where's the evidence? The graph given shows health is improving, not getting worse, so the burden is on your side to back you your claim. If the introduction of GMO food coincided with a decrease in overall health, then you would at least have some data to point out. It would be merely correlation, but it would at least be a start.

If you think allergies are increasing as a result of GMOs, then it should be pretty easy to come up with an experiment you can do in the lab to back up that claim or to dismiss it. I'm not expecting you do that experiment, but it shouldn't be too hard to find a scientists who already did.

There are too many variables to establish the relationship. You need 2 groups, one eating GMOs and one not eating GMOs. You cannot monitor a person from not eating GMO food because there are too many unlabeled food that contain GMOs. Then there are other things that introduce health issues, such as environment, water etc. That is the reason we need large sample and longer period to study. There are bottlenecks introduced to this kind of study by pro GMO groups. One is the labeling of GMO foods. Other bottleneck is that the independent research bodies has limited access to these GMO seeds.
" Scientific American noted that several studies that were initially approved by seed companies were later blocked from publication when they returned "unflattering" results. While arguing that seed companies' intellectual property rights ought to be protected, Scientific American calls the practice dangerous and has called for the restrictions on research in the end-user agreements to be lifted immediately and for the Environmental Protection Agency to require, as a condition of approval, that independent researchers have unfettered access to genetically modified products for testing.[69] In February 2009, the American Seed Trade Association agreed that they "would allow researchers greater freedom to study the effects of GM food crops." This agreement left many scientists optimistic about the future, but there is little optimism as to whether this agreement has the ability to "alter what has been a research environment rife with obstruction and suspicion."[68][70]"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetically_modified_food_controversies

Just a request that you provide good scientific method, peer-reviewed research that demonstrates that GMO's are unsafe.
I expect you'll obfuscate instead of providing anything, but I hope you prove me wrong.

Once one gets religion, evidence is meaningless.

Alas, you are right. The progressive movement should be fact based and science based. Unfortunately, that's becoming more and more difficult to create. It's actually stunning to watch just how far some folks will go to maintain their beliefs against overwhelming evidence. As can be noted by this OP, some will, in fact, work tirelessly to promote their beliefs, no matter how outlandish and ridiculous they may be.

I think you are right. However, I can't stop trying. This is too important and hopefully other more reasonable people will see this for what it is.

I keep trying, myself.

What's bullshit?

Denialism at its silliest.