Dear Bush God Figure:

I am always amazed that anti-GM writers don’t look for the papers they say they want. GM food safety data are easy to find. These are not found in applications to the Office of the Gene Technology Regulator only because they are the purview of the food safety authority, FSANZ.

However, papers on GM food safety assessment are still widely available.

No long-term studies? One recent paper is from the German Institutes of Animal Nutrition and Organic Farming and published in 2007 in Animal Feed Science and Technology (volume 133, pages 2-30). Summarised are 18 studies on cows, pigs, chickens and other animals, including a 10 generation experiment with quail and 4 generations on chickens. The German authors note that “In agreement with more than 100 animal studies to date, results show no significant differences” in GM and non-GM feeds.

The citations and many abstracts of more than 150 papers on GM food safety are provided for your convenience at Australia’s gmopundit. Just google that name and then look for “The Full Monty on Ethics, Safety”, and then spool down to “The Full Monty on animal feeding tests…”

You can find still more information by googling FSANZ, such as “FSANZ GM food”, and at Agrifood Awareness Australia ( www.afaa.com.au; use their search function on, say, “feeding trials”). Also check out http://www.foodstandards.gov.au/foodmatters/gmfoods/gmcurrentapplication1030.cfm

You can also just google such things as “Roundup Ready Soy Food Safety” to find papers directly. My suggestion, though, is that you use “Google Scholar” so that you find scientific papers more readily, rather than having to dig through all the misleading and false rumours commonly picked up by regular Google.

On the general subject of allergies, the common thinking among researchers is that they are increasing because our homes are too clean. http://sparkpeople.com/resource/wellness_articles.asp?id=852

Dear Bush Goddess:

Space limited my last response. Another inconvenient fact for your conspiracy that GM crops are implicated in allergies is that these claims have been made in both the UK and Australia where there is no or practically no GM foods for sale that have proteins, which are needed for an allergenic response.

Do you eat kiwi fruits? They cause allergies, but have not been tested or banned. Eat raw mushrooms? I wouldn’t. They have carcinogenic hydrazines. No safety assessment has been done, but some websites will rightly advise you not to eat them raw.

Of particular interest to food safety should be papers by Felicity Wu, Gary Munkvold, and others, which document that GM insect resistant Bt corn is safer for consumption than traditional corn. Because the Bt protects against insect feeding damage on which dangerous fungi grow, Bt corn tends to have lower levels of highly toxic and carcinogenic fumonisins, which is why I prefer to eat Bt corn.

Dear Bushrat:
If you really want “ agriculture that grows worms, not kills them", you would support herbicide tolerance because it reduces tillage. Tillage kills earthworms (think about a big iron knife ripping through and turning over your house). Reduced tillage reduces maintains soil carbon, reduces carbon emissions and reduces fuel use by an estimated 9 million kg of CO2 worldwide. Under field conditions, research in Adelaide shows that glyphosate (eg., Roundup) does not hurt earthworms (Paul Dalby et al. 1995, Soil Biol. Biochem. 27: 1661-1662). Because glyphosate replaces other more persistent herbicides, there is no overall increase in use.

Dear Julie:

Can you list the “many degrees in this field” held by Judy Carman, and more importantly, even one relevant peer reviewed scientific paper? Can you give the source of canola meal study you mentioned

Ian Edwards has hit the nail on the head. These people continually claim we just have to wait and all will be revealed. Thousands of tests and trillions of meals over 11 years and still not one adverse impact, but still they say "Wait, we have one person who will prove it from her laundry!" Initially we were told you would be infertile and waste away by eating GM food, but the Americans whose diet is almost exclusively GM have ~6 times the population increase to the EU who have only this year opened up completely to GM canola, and the Americans major health problem is obesity. Can 300 million people all be wrong?
I am about to plant my 12th GM cotton crop, and when I first started I was told by these same people that doom was all that lay ahead. Forests of resistant weeds, uncontrollable pests, and multi-nationals owning us. Nothing could be further from the truth.
I no longer spray my cotton, the chemicals that are in the rivers are from my grain farming neighbours, and I know I have contributed to a better world.
The secrecacy they falsely claim is practiced by the real world is in fact taken to a new level by them. The ends do not justify the means, and this debate needs some truth.
Good on you Ian for calling a spade a spade.
But my question is, how long do we have to wait for the real world proof these people promise? I have been waiting for nearly 12 years now, and all I have seen is benefits to the environment, my family, my business, and my neighbours.
One "trial" by a Greenpeace activist will not sway me- I have lived the difference.

Has anyone read the news article published in Science about spreading resistance to glyphosate, “A growing threat down on the farm” (25 May 2007: Vol. 316: 1114 – 1117)? A quote:

“What's behind this blossoming of transgenics? Oddly enough, a herbicide called glyphosate. The compound is the world's bestselling herbicide by far, prized by farmers for its safety and effectiveness at wiping out hundreds of different kinds of weeds. That effectiveness has not only convinced farmers to make the switch but also prompted seed companies to engineer crops to be impervious to glyphosate's effects. That has allowed farmers to spray their growing crops to wipe out encroaching weeds without fear of wiping out their livelihood. The model has proven so successful that of the transgenic crops planted worldwide last year, approximately 80% were engineered to be glyphosate-resistant (GR). "The rate at which this technology has been adopted floors me," says Donald Weeks, a plant biochemist at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln.

But this success has sown the seeds of its own potential demise. Much of modern agriculture is now dependent on a single chemical. "Glyphosate is as important to world agriculture as penicillin is to human health," says Stephen Powles, who directs the Western Australian Herbicide Resistance Initiative in Perth. It's an apt comparison, because just as pathogens have grown resistant to penicillin and other antibiotics, weeds resistant to glyphosate have recently begun sprouting and spreading around the globe. For now, the scale of the outbreak remains small. But agricultural experts worry that herbicide-resistant weeds are poised for their own takeover. "There is going to be an epidemic of glyphosate-resistant weeds," Powles says. "In 3 to 4 years, it will be a major problem." If farmers and seed companies lose their ability to rely on glyphosate, it could cost them billions of dollars in lost productivity. But the damage will likely be more than monetary, as it could also have a major environmental consequence as well…”

Any objective geneticist would tell you that this was inevitable. This is what happens when you put short term gain before long term sustainability.

Any one read the latest study on the human genome? A four year effort involving 35 groups from 80 organisations around the world have challenged the traditional view of gene function.
It appears that the Central Dogma of molecular biology ( the one gene,one protein principle) is officially disputed. Instead, genes "appear to operate in a complex network, and interact and overlap with one another and with other components in ways not yet understood."
The patenting of genes is based on the assumption that a gene is "an ordered sequence of DNA that encodes a specific functional product". If, in the context of this research, genes are only one component then how do the patents stand?
And what of safety issues? How can we be reassured of the longterm safety of GM foods when these assurances have been based on the idea that genes act and behave independently?
Thank goddness for the likes of Kim Chance who has the courage to put safety and health concerns first.
More independent research, and total transparency is needed before we consider growing GM crops here in WA.

let's look at this from a different angle: who should decide this question? (or any question, of course)

if you don't like the decision, is it because it's not the answer you want, or is it because the wrong people are deciding?

until this matter is clear, all talk is mere chatter.

suppose we agree that the government should decide. not a radical answer, although not my own.

then the contrary position is: some farmers see a buck to be made by breaking the law, much as a mugger does.

end of discussion?