Re Omega 3 from Julie Newman – Omega3 is shorthand for two families of nutrients, so there are several different omega 3 fatty acids to talk about, not all found in linseed oil.

Question for Julie Newman NCF : You have made repeated demands for extra independent field trials of GM canola. What I cannot understand is why, given they are huge costs to other parties, how your demand for these is relevant to the liability issue you are concerned about. Why are you demanding extra costs for others: how is it relevant to your need to reduce your personal liability?

Also Julie Newman: More evidence for better GM yields arrived when I read my latest GRDC newsletter Ground cover.

http://www.grdc.com.au/growers/gc/gc59/index.htm

There is all sorts of stuff in it on 10-20% better yields in Australia with Liberty GM Hybrids.

Re Safety: Personally I've eaten GM cookies and they were yummy. I'd happily agree to take part in any human trial, but I'd probably be unsuitable as I have a chemical sensitivity to salicylate, which means many good foods currently on the market make me sick. Organic soup is really bad on this, the literature tells me, so I avoid it.

Dear Julie NonGMFarmer:
You asked on Sunday 4 December “Why should GM yield more…. It only gives chemical resistance”. Julie, are you prepared to give up your triazine tolerant (TT) canola next season and plant only non-herbicide tolerant (HT) varieties? It’s only got chemical resistance too, and has lower yield and oil potential than non-HT varieties. So why do you grow it? Isn’t it because the use of atrazine gives you better weed control and therefore more yield?

Julie, you made yourself and your own credibility an issue when you declared that “I have always hated farmers being lied to” (27 November11:24AM). You have also accused Agronomist of being linked to “a paid PR consultant”, but refused to give any evidence. All through this page, you have made such claims as “atrazine is not toxic” (24 November 2005 5:23:44 PM) that are easily proved false. (http://www.epa.gov/safewater/contaminants/dw_contamfs/atrazine.html).

Can I ask “Opinionated2” and “Is it safe” if they believe you that “atrazine is not toxic”? “Opinionated2” and “Is it safe”, please read the EPA link I have given above and tell me if you want this applied to the canola you might eat or might be fed to animals you might eat.

Julie, I am disappointed that Nic Kentish is “not an active member of the network”. Back in April 2004, the Weekly Times and the ABC described Nic as a spokesman for the Network. Were they wrong? You still haven’t provided a timeline for events, or told us when and how many members of your Network were on teleconferences with Greenpeace. However, you are still apparently sticking to your story that your friend George did you a favour by not telling you that Greenpeace actually arranged to set up your website and handled money for it while you were telling the world that you had no links to Greenpeace. Surely it is a bit suspect that you came to your awakening only after Nic told us that you were having secret teleconferences with Greenpeace. And they were secret, not announced but occurring even before you threatened to sue Paula Fitzgerald

Julie NonGMFarmer Newman, you asked for real issues, and I’ll keep asking about them.

I’ll repeat my questions from 5 December; “Now that you know about these miscitations of the real literature, will you pull these claims from your website? What evidence is required for you to withdraw factually inaccurate claims from your website?” We know you place a high premium on hating “farmers being lied to”.

Liability is something you claim as a huge issue. Please answer the following directly and specifically: Will the NCF sue about the Carracher GM canola finds?

Both Sten and I have answered you on strict liability (search this page again), but you have ignored our replies.

If there is anyone posting on this web page, who is not an Australian citizen, please declare that.

“Is it really safe”: I am not Bill Crabtree. I prefer anonymity only because I don’t want to fend off threats of frivolous lawsuits from Julie Newman, who has tried to threaten and intimidate the free speech of both Crabtree and Fitzgerald. I don’t have Julie’s financial resources or wealthy and influential friends.

I also have allergies. Like me, you should be happy to learn that a peanut variety manipulated by GM to be without its allergens is being developed. GM foods are safer for allergies than conventional foods because allergies are carefully studied for GM foods, but not tested for conventional foods.

I volunteered to be a test subject for GM foods more than 10 years ago, and have eaten all GM crops and foods ever marketed, including Bt sweet corn and potatoes that you have never seen, and some experimental crops, such as raw Bt broccoli. I have not done this casually, but have studied the volumes of data submitted to regulators. I have full confidence in the safety of these foods. Prefer GM crops because I know they are grown with fewer and safer pesticides and that corn in particular has fewer fumonisins, which are powerful fungal toxins and carcinogens (see my post on 28 November 2005)

For 8 years I have been avoiding corn and soy as that's all that I know GM is in. Should I be avoiding others? Keep it out of my food as it's hard avoiding cottonseed, corn and soy products now. With this Atrizine chemical, isn't that sprayed on young plants. Yes, your EPA web site says that it's nasty but I'm not drinking it! And I have no intention of drinking it but I would be consuming the whole GM food that you are planning to contaminate. How much as a consumer would be on or in the end product of Atrizine treated food? Compare it to GM where it's the whole lot. Get real here! You are comparing 1 cell of a grain to the whole grain that you are wanting to contaminate. Stop trying to murder me. I've re-read the timeline in this journal that you are attacking Julie with and it's pretty obvious what Julie is saying and when. She's not hiding anything but you are. Read the Forum and see the timeline. It makes perfect sense to me. If you are happy to grow 2 head so you can get the same brains as us, then feel free, but I don't need 2 heads so leave my food alone!

I agree that Atrazine is a very harmful substance but now read this

http://www.nrdc.org/health/pesticides/natrazine.asp

AS can be seen it doesn't matter what the chemical the decision is made despite the science.

This is what I have been arguing... How will a consumer or a farmer or anyone else for that matter ever be able to trust a GM product or any other product for that matter when decisions are taken on the wrong basis.

Pressure groups run the USA and Australia and the science is thrown out the window because of money.

Who created the lack of trust? Governments, Corporations and the anything for a buck lobby. At the moment the GM lobby is saying trust us because a Chemical company scientist said it was safe OR Trust us because the US Govt approved it. There are no long term studies vouching for GM's safety, there are no long term studies on what effect these gene manipulations may have on other genes.

Personally I try to eat as litle Canola and vegetable oils as possible because it is now suspected of causing macular degeneration. OOps another side effect never tested for. See http://100777.com/node/1053

This is why the precautionary principle must be used... we cannot trust the people who are saying "Trust US"

A new evaluation of herbicide risks in cereal farming has just come out. More detailals at the link below:
December 9, 2005, Via Agnet/ISAA CropBiotech Net
Wheat varieties grown all over the world may be classified as conventional, produced by genetic engineering, or generated by mutagenic techniques. With three such methods in place, Robert K.D. Peterson and Leslie M. Shama of Montana State University carry out A comparative risk assessment of genetically engineered, mutagenic, and conventional wheat production systems using the risk assessment paradigm. Their paper appears in the current issue of Transgenic Research.
Among others, researchers found that the herbicides glyphosate and imazamox, which are used to protect wheat, actually present lower human health and ecological risks than many other herbicides associated with conventional wheat production systems.
http://gmopundit.blogspot.com/2005/12/assessments-of-risks-with-herbicide.html

Re Problems with vegetable oils: The macular degeneration is interesting, suggesting that perhaps trans-fatty acids should be suspected. New varieties of oilseeds that minimise this are hitting the market. As far as vegetable oil risks -life is full of trade offs, and you won't see olive oil going out of fashion too quickly, I'd say.
Decreased heart risks are probably the compensation. In any case too much fat of any sort in the diet is generally bad.