Hi Agronomist,
This article
http://www.bioscienceresource.org/news/news19.php
details the problems emerging with Bt. The article is fully referenced.

Bt toxins are expressed at high levels in GM plant tissues and they persist in the soil, either within plant cells or as native protein
(Baumgarte and Tebbe 2005; Griffiths et al. 2006).

Debris and pollen of plants transgenic for Bt-toxins can enter nearby agricultural streams in large quantities and negatively effect important stream organisms (Rosi-Marshall et al. 2007).

Daphnia magna, a water flea commonly used in toxicological investigations, can also be negatively affected by Bt transgenic plant debris containing the Bt toxin Cry1Ab (Bøhn et al. 2008).

The Bt GM plants are not the same as non-GM plants (ie substantially equivalent) and this may be causing problems.
“There are at least 43 significant protein expression differences between the MON810 line and a near-isogenic control (Zolla et al. 2008).” “Therefore it supports the view that substantial equivalence was never a true scientific concept, as has been argued, it is a regulatory ‘principle’ associated with no biological relationship nor any theoretical validity (Millstone et al. 1999).”

The Pub med site is not fully comprehensive. Dr Judy Carman did 25 animal feeding studies for her PhD alone. ( Ph.D. in Medicine, University of Adelaide in the areas of metabolic regulation, nutritional biochemistry and cancer. Accepted without alteration. Conferred 1989)

The Royal Society receives funding from biotech corporations. The experts from the Royal Society who examined Pusztai’s work were mainly pro-GM. Their report was based on incomplete data Pusztai produced as an internal report.

His full study was peer-reviewed and published in the Lancet. The editor of the lancet was threatened by one of the former Vice Presidents of the Royal Society. Full details here http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Royal_Society

Rob the studies you link to are mainly animal production studies done on hens, ruminants and fish. These are not relevant to human health.

Studies showing no problems with GM do not mean it is safe. If studies show problems with GM they should be followed up not ignored

"Rob the studies you link to are mainly animal production studies done on hens, ruminants and fish. These are not relevant to human health. "

But Daphnia are. Please.

I just love how a shwish of your mighty keyboard and the Royal Society becomes irrelevant. For your next trick how about you make the 25 Nobel Laureates dissappear.

Before I leave I suggest you alert the organic food industry of the evils of Bt. They shouuld be warned.

It is now clear you have zero interest in learning the real science. Have a nice day.

Rob from Canada- seems it's your version of science or no science. You should take your own advice and check out some of the detail. Also even in Canada you are not allowed testing on GMs without authorisation from the patent holder. Even farmers are required to sign a contract before buying GM grains agreeing that no studies will be done with the grain they purchase. Why don't you try to buy some grain, get permission to do testing and provide the evidence you have achieved this and how. Maybe you'll find the loop hole other testers need to find.

Rob

Now you know how it feels to have what you believe to be a carefully considered and researched opinion summarily dismissed in a blink.

Frustrating isn't it ?

By your photo you seem a genuine type, and I suspect your love of your science, perhaps blinds you to looking beyond your immediate trained frames of reference. You may be a 'science-tragic' and really want to see technology rewarded more than what it is, perhaps. You do seem a little naive when it comes to corporatised science or related bodies though, if I may so.

There are many in the science community, it seems, who regard the Royal Society as corrupt, and biased, for example.

With respect - " no evidence of harm..." - well, one needs proper monitoring to be able to make that conclusion - even Prof Rick Roush ( melbourne uni ) was recently publicly heard to admit to there being no human health / GM studies ever done.

There are rising health issues in the community and GM, because there have been no appropriate studies, MUST be included in the range of possibilities to consider as possible causes.

I, personally, would simply create a mutually agreed, and reviewed, upon series of studies, and whatever else deemed necessary, and considerably resolve the issue. Period.

Re the 25 nobel laureates - who are they and what are their fields please ? Can you also confirm that they have reviewed all the NoGM arguments and views too or just the proGM perspective? If necessary I will contact them personally afterwards.

Agronomist -

1. Could you also please specifically define or reference what you consider to be an appropriate human health /GM study guideline / procedure / protocol ? ( sorry don't know correct terminology )?

NoGMers will then know what your frame of reference is.

2. And I would certainly prefer Judy Carman's "one website, one PO Box" Institute over Monsanto's insipidly pretty website, 18,800 staff, and documented record of government / GM related bribings, and community and human chemical harms ( just forked out $600,000,000US settlement ).

Thanks

Hi Rob
Daphnia are not relevant to human health. The studies I listed show that Daphnia are relevant to the health of streams and they are being negatively affected by Bt GM crops.

What consumers of GM foods need is full and detailed tests and studies done that are relevant to human health. This has not yet occurred.

The Royal Society becomes irrelevant to science if its Fellows are not following the scientific method.

I have explained in a previous post that Bt spray used by organic growers is sprayed onto plants and this degrades within 2 weeks. This is different to Bt GM plants which are pesticide factories constantly creating large ammounts of the Bt toxin.

There is evidence that GM and non-GM plants are not “substantially equivalent”. The GM Bt plants could be manufacturing unknown substances that negatively affect soil and aquatic life.

Bt GM plants were passed as safe partly because Bt sprays were considered to have a history of safe use. However I have also listed in previous posts details of where Bt sprays have caused reports of allergy and asthma. This is why the organic industry uses Bt sprays as a last resort during periods of high insect infestation.

With Bt GM crops this toxin is used as a first resort.

RoushysLoveChild, Brake and Evenson’s paper, whilst focussed on testicular biology, did measure the general health of their animals (Table 3 in their paper) and litter sizes. They also measured and reported the composition of the feed.

The ACNFP’s conclusion: “The Committee also notes that Dr Ermakova’s findings are not consistent with those described in a peer-reviewed paper published in 2004.1 In a well controlled study no adverse effects were found in mice fed on diets containing 21% GM herbicide-resistant soya beans and followed through up to 4 generations.” http://food.gov.uk/multimedia/pdfs/acnfpgmsoya.pdf

lillian, the fact that an article on the internet has references is no guarantee of quality. This article does a bit of cherry-picking data to support the conclusion. The Bohn et al. paper, as I have noted a couple of times here, used unrealistically high concentrations of ground corn that would never occur in nature. Rosi-Marshall et al. did not find “debris and pollen of plants transgenic for Bt-toxins can enter nearby agricultural streams in large quantities”. Instead they reported a maximum of 8g/sq m/year of corn material and a maximum of 1g/sq m/year of corn pollen. They also only found higher mortality among caddis fly larvae fed 3 times the highest amount of pollen found in streams. Interesting, but other studies have found no effect of lepidopteran Bt on caddis fly larvae http://nabs.confex.com/nabs/2007/techprogram/P1519.HTM http://www.fao.org/agris/search/display.do?f=./1996/v2203/CA9502319.xml;CA9502319 .

As for the 43 significant protein differences between Bt corn and its near isoline, there are hundreds of protein differences between different varieties.

The Pubmed site is comprehensive for the published literature. 25 feeding studies, but none published. How good were they? What matters is the track record in the area. No papers = no track record.

I happen to have read Ewen and Pusztai’s paper. It shows: 1) 3 of 5 measurements were significant for GNA, 2) 3 of 5 measurements were highly significant for cooking, 3) 1 of 5 measurements was (just) significant for transformation.