Hello fellow debaters I have been incognito for a week and so have missed the riveting debate on what I am told I have to eat in the future. The "She'll be right mate" attitudes of pro GM food people is unbelievable.

I noticed everyone seemed to ignore the link :

http://www.i-sis.org.uk/list.php

Could it be these eminent scientists opinions don't count if your dogma is to meddle with the food supply, to let the companies own it, and to hang the consequences.

I think in sales speak this tactic to "ignore the objection" might work but then again if you keep a lid on things they get out anyway and they come out more loudly when they have been supressed or ignored.

Nevermind I guess it proves the old saying "You are what you eat". Which modified gene in which GM food(s) turns off the "clear thinking" gene? Hangon they won't have tested for that... they might find it.

Dear Julie NonGM Newman:

All that "55,185 results" shows is that one can get lots of words from the internet, but not necessarily knowledge or wisdom. Are all sources equally expert?

I have met Canadian farmers who are not are pro-GM, such as with NFU. Non-GM canola farmers, at least, are in a tiny minority. Court records prove that even Schmeiser wanted to be GM. Should non-GM canola farmers determine what everyone else does, or come to a compromise? They can market as non-GM if they develop an alternative marketing scheme. The major marketers have never found a premium that made it worthwhile to segregate. Maybe you can sell Canadian non-GM farmers non-GM seed. Other businesses ship seed to Canada.

With respect to your questions for Agronomist, risk management is what everyone wants. What is wrong with a system that uses international standards for adventitious presence? (not zero, for which there is little or no market value) Pollen flow studies show that cross pollination meets international standards anyway, but could be further reduced by choices of varieties with different flowering dates, bee management, etc. Not even the seed remaining in a harvester will make much difference in harvest of a whole paddock. The key is purity of the seed producers, which is their job.

Why would CSIRO bother to submit data to government for a project that would be so obviously be rejected? If CSIRO had moved forward, they would have been asked for a lot of such data. Why else do you suppose they collected it? It wasn’t the first safety study CSIRO published on the peas, eg, Pusztai et al 1999, …. minimal detrimental effect on the nutritional value of peas fed to rats at 30% of diet. Journal of Nutrition 129: 1597-603.

The problem with triazines is not snow, but rain. Triazines moves with rain to ground or other surface water, even in Australia.

No one can find any difference at all between canola oils from conventional and GM crops. There is no DNA or protein left. What would you even look for in a feeding trial?

For the record, I have not training in PR and I am not paid to promote GM foods. I have a BSc and a PhD from the University of Queensland. I work for the Institute of Public Affairs as Director of the Environment Unit. I work with a network of academic from across Australia - all interested in public policy and environmental issues and in particular taking an evidence based approach to issues.

Now could the 'nonGM farmer' stop spreading misinformation and tell us a bit about herself? I understand she is not really a farmer but rather a saver and seller of seeds on a commercial basis? Is Monsanto a potential business competitor?

Don't like exposure Jennifer? Are you saying that these claims from GM Watch http://www.gmwatch.org/profile1.asp?PrId=259&page=I are wrong?

"With Monsanto amongst its funders, the IPA has a specific focus on 'biotechnology', saying it wants to 'combat the misinformation put out by radical groups' who oppose genetic engineering."

..."In 2001 IPA launched what it claimed was 'an international first' when it 'started publishing a monthly corporate newsletter, by subscription only, dedicated to watching activist NGOs' [Non-Governmental Organisations]. These were, it warned, 'targeting business' and other 'organisations as never before'. This new corporate newsletter was NGO Watch Digest"

"With regard to its own funding, the IPA claims it maintains its independence because, 'Our annual budget - of about $1 million - is obtained from more than 2,000 individuals, corporations and foundations'. However, according to Sharon Bedder , 'Almost one third of IPA's $1.5 million annual budget comes from mining and manufacturing companies.' "

No, sorry to disappoint you Jennifer but your facts are wrong regarding me. We farm over 10,000ha near Newdegate and only a real farmer would do that. We do sell a bit of clover seed for farmers but not canola seed. Monsanto is no competitor threat but is a threat to non-GM farmers.

Opinionated2. There are people much more qualified to take on your list than I, but because you ask, I will give you my impression. Firstly, you need to ask: “How do you get on this list?” The answer is you sign up. There is no minimum standard of membership to this list and you don’t even need to be a scientist to belong. Equally, you need to know nothing about GM to belong – you just need to be against it. This list of “eminent scientists” contains the following expertise: permaculture, I consume only organic food, organic grower, linguistics, campaigner, web developer, wholistic energy therapist and so on. This doesn’t mean that these people’s views don’t matter, just that they are unlikely to have any expertise in the area. One way to assess scientific expertise is to look at publication records in the peer-reviewed scientific literature. I don’t have the resources to follow this up, but my guess is that this whole list would have very few publications in the peer-reviewed literature that are pertinent to GM crops. Perhaps you would like to prove me wrong? Just because you can put a Dr. or Prof. in front of your name, doesn’t make you an expert on everything.

At least with the letter that NonGMFarmer criticizes, the authors have some expertise in the area and might be expected to know what they are talking about.

NonGMFarmer. Your assertion the triazines are unsuitable for Canada is at odds with what happens in corn growing. Lots of triazine herbicides have been used in corn in Canada and the US. Both corn and canola are sown in spring after the thaw. Therefore, snow would not affect triazine performance at all. The real problem with triazine herbicides is movement in water and that is why they are under regulatory scrutiny in Canada. As to your claims about drought susceptibility, I would suggest that repeating claims that have no factual basis (for details you might like to look at http://www.biotechknowledge.com/biotech/knowcenter.nsf/0/2BE8AA76EDA77C75862570BB0017A951?OpenDocument) does constitute a scare campaign, wouldn’t you agree? Otherwise, why do it?

Agronomist/ChirsPreston -Asking questions does not constitute a scare campaign. You fail to give reasons why Australians use an additional watering on GM cotton or why Bayer- Cropscience withdrew from NSW trials last year citing drought conditions as a reason.
The reason cited for Monsanto's Roundup Ready's yield penalties in “the Scientist” was that the chemical remains active and sits in the meristems affecting the emerging buds and therefore yields. This problem would be lessened if rain is experienced not long after application, but would be worse during drought.

Near the same Monsanto-sponsored reference http://www.biotechknowledge.com/biotech/knowcenter.nsf/0/2BE8AA76EDA77C75862570BB0017A951?OpenDocument is a comment by RickRoush stating that it is the organic farmers fault for getting contaminated - " Ballarin could have applied some effort to avoid cross-pollination. The most obvious steps include isolation by a few hundred meters, or planting his corn so that it flowered asynchronously from the GM corn."

GM is the intruder to the industry and it should not be up to the non-GM farmer to keep GM out, it should be up to the GM farmer to provide the buffer zone and plant their canola at a time when it will not pollinate with ours. Why should we be expected to waste our land or plant at inopportune times just because our neighbour plants GM?

Rebel (?Monsanto), Judy Carmen has the personality, the qualifications, the technical skill and the background knowledge to perform these tests and outsource any further testing (autopsies etc) as required.
I would say that the government realised that what Judy Carmen said about the differences in feeding studies performed versus what we were misled to believe, was true. What Judy Carmen predicted could happen was confirmed by the CSIRO results. What Judy Carmen was proposing was actually going to test the food and had the potential to alleviate consumer concerns or identify a problem if there was one. Why tender the testing out to someone that may have a vested interest?

There seems to be a genuine fear of these tests from the pro-GM sector before the tests have even started. Why?

Risk management should not be denied.