How many times have you been in hospital and how long because of your allergies? If you are the guinea pig for alergic people then did you have a group of doctors standing by in case you went into shock when you took GM foods? How many times has food made your eyes puff up so badly that you cannot see or you cannot breathe because someone has put a food that you are allergic to disguised on a plate as decoration that you did not recognise. Slightly allergic is very different than full allergies. I cannot even eat food that someone has used the same knife on as an allergic food. One drop of e.g. cucumber would mean hospitalization or death. How do you know that what GM says is an allergy in peanuts for example is what I am allergic to? Are the tests that have been performed quantitive or qualitive? I don't want to be a fibonacci number of GM possibilities of having side effects. This can affect the whole whole as you are playing with the world's population in health.

Dear Julie NonGMNewman:
Regarding poverty stricken farmers adding weeds to their diets, you need to get out and travel the world a bit. The people who most need vitamin A live in city slums. There are no fields with edible weeds. As I said before, check out the poorer sections of Mumbai, for example, before you offer naïve solutions to a serious problem.

Dear “Is it really safe”:
I know from years of explaining the safety of GM crops to a range of audiences that there is no way I will persuade you that your fears about the safety of GM foods are unfounded. Never mind that every major scientific and medical society in the world has reviewed this issue and concluded that the regulatory system is strong and the foods that have been accepted by the regulatory system have been more intensively reviewed than anything else you have eaten. I know that people with fears as entrenched as yours will never be convinced otherwise, just as I know that I can never convince creationists and intelligent designers (to use another example from the National Forum) that the evidence for evolution is overwhelming.

Your comparison of GM canola with atrazine is a prime example of how differently we perceive risk. In fact, in Adelaide we were drinking simazine, atrazine’s close relative, when it was used in agroforestry and washed into the Adelaide water supply. It would not surprise me if atrazine is found in local water supplies in eastern Australia in the years to come due to increased reliance on atrazine resistant canola. Atrazine and simazine are persistent pesticides that are dinosaurs, introduced in the days of DDT but still not swept out by the regulatory system in some countries, even though banned in Europe.

Why do we Australians pay so much attention to overseas so-called experts instead of listening to our own? Bill Crabtree has visited North and South America and reviewed what is actually happening there. He was Landcarer of the Year in WA in 1996. How many of us can claim the similar experience and recognition

Opinionated2 and Is it Really safe? You like I live in a rich Western country and have the choice to eat what we like when we like. However, people in poor third world countries do not have the same choice. A number of the more vocal groups in the anti-GM lobby are pinning their hopes on convincing third-world countries that they should ban GM foods, just look at what happen in Zambia. These same people are often vocally against the “industrialization of agriculture and the Green Revolution”. I find the latter arguments unforgivable and the former merely an extension of the latter. The Green Revolution provided vastly improved varieties of basic foodstuffs that had higher harvest index and improved tolerance to pests. This allowed many poor countries to greatly increase food production and to feed their increasing populace. The anti-industrialists, who mostly live in rich countries, want to dictate to poor nations to suit their own ideological position, regardless of the damage that is done. Why should these countries not benefit from agricultural advances?

I find it frustrating that the Canadian canola industry is so often portrayed as a corrupt and dying industry, simply because Canadian farmers have found GM canola to be a valuable product. The truth of the matter is that the Canadian canola industry is not in trouble. Farmers are continuing to grow, harvest and sell their product. The biggest danger they are facing at the moment is the flood of soybeans from Argentina, Paraguay and Brazil on the world oilseed market. This is tending to drive canola prices down. Canadian farmers have adopted herbicide-tolerant technology as it provides substantial production benefits, not least of which is they don’t have to spend so long tilling their fields. More than 95% of all canola in Canada is herbicide tolerant and over 75% is GM. The number of farmers using GM canola continues to grow, but has almost saturated the market. Canadian growers are now looking to specialty oils as a way of continuing to grow their industry.

With going on and on about Julie being funded by Greenpeace, she has said that the only funding that she has had is the start up of her website. How long has the website been going for? Get over it and let it go as this is petty.

I am not saying that you cannot convince me about GM foods but so far you have not given data to suggest that I should. This is not evolution unless you use science correctly. Isn’t the first rule of science sceptism, and take nothing for granted? Give me proof of the scientific tests that have been performed by external and non judgemental scientists. Where are the papers/factual evidence? Are the rules of determinism and empiricalism followed or are they one result over many because that result suited your purpose. I am doing a “Socrates” and questioning your truth. I want evidence on these tests via biopsies done over a 10 year period on human subjects testing for any indication of change given each year or change in protein levels: Mucosa and submucosa of the stomach, Spinal fluid/meninges, Spirograph to check lung tissue/strength, One major organ (like spleen), hair papilla for strength. Halitosis, deformation in bones, fertility, inflammation or joint discomfort. I want to know if there are any oncogene in any part of the body whilst and after eating GM foods - blood muscle and bone tests needed. Test subjects only eat GM. You have been tested your doctor has cleared you. I want more than this as GP’s don’t test everything. GP’s would not know if something is truly amiss as the body does tend to hide things until it is too late. You are using qualitative measures which are notorious for being subjective. I want quantitive measures done by non judgemental scientists on the above reported tests and then and only then would you convince me. Until then, I will keep asking the question “Is it really safe” because until you prove it, I will believe that GM is not

Chuck Benbrook focussed on the resistance to glyphosate that is developing in US since the overuse of glyphosate on Roundup Ready crops. Farmers are using more glyphosate applications and more alternative chemicals to try to kill the weeds that single glyphosate applications previously controlled. If the weeds are not going to die from the chemical that GM crops are resistant to, why would you want to plant GM Roundup-Ready crops? Farmers will be in serious problems if we lose the effectiveness of our most commonly used herbicide.

Benbrook wasn't fired from his job. He was politely asked to resign from a particular chemical advisory committee as he was considered too outspoken. Many (including media) expressed their disgust and embarrassment at the slander campaign aimed at him.

You shouldn't be frightened of giving your name and freedom of speech unless you are planning on deliberately lying publicly with an aim to slander people. Paula Fitzgerald claimed I was Greenpeace-funded when I am not and Bill Crabtree was being rather outrageous publicly claiming I was lying over issues he knew were true and threatening that I and NCF should be “wiped from the face of the earth”. The hard data from ABARE was a perfect example, he constantly claimed I was lying so I sent him the hard-data, he agreed with the figures and promised he would publicly apologise but he didn't. Despite knowing the truth, he still kept claiming I was lying and still has this on his website. Bill Crabtree is no expert and has very little respect from the farmers around here or from other agronomists, particularly those that were at university when he apparently took twice as long to get his degree. If he had more support he wouldn't have failed his attempt to run for parliament.

If Japan was not so sensitive to GM, they would not have sent a delegation to visit Canada and US making the clear statement that they would not buy US/Canadian wheat if GM wheat was introduced. Combined consumer groups lobbied each Australian State government with similar statements regarding canola

Thanks for the update NonGM Farmer ....

Nature is such a complex thing ... In a simple world everything man invented would work without any downsides but alas Nature just doesn't seem to work that way.

What you have reported makes lots of sense... I wonder what the 200 times increase of residual levels of roundup in our foods will taste like with the other chemicals the USA farmers are now having to use.

Agronomist : Aren't you slanting your argument .... We agree that 3rd world countries SHOULD benefit from agricultural advances AS LONG AS they are safe and that the third world countries aren't being used as guinea pigs and that what we are feeding them is SAFE. PLUS I am concerned that Corporations may use feeding the starving line to get around reasonable precautionary principles arguments. Things like what you'd rather see a person starve... my answer ... of course NOT now guarantee me that the food generationally safe!

That too is a sound moral position to take. What happens if we launch all this GM stuff on the third world and it causes illnesses or deformities in kids at some later stage. Who will pick up the pieces. Big Corporations do not have a strong track record here. Remember Bhopal!