Madge website shallow? Its the most intresting,deep ,profound website I have seen for a while with great links. Especially moving was the Indian website with photos of many Indian people holding signs “’like No Gm for my village” etc.
Thanks for a great post Under one god, you have nailed it.
Agronomist and Rogo , it is confusing that Bacillus Thuringiensis has the Initial BT, but let me explain. Bacillus Thuringienisis TOXIN is not sprayed on organic crops.
Bacillus thuringiensis is a bacteria that is harmless to animals, humans, and beneficial insects and may be used on organic crops right up until harvest.The product we use is Dipel, and it is a powder that is sprinkled on cabbage family leaves. Only in the gut of the pest caterpillar( the white cabbage butterfly)who ingests the bacteria will it create a toxin, which forms crystals and spores inside the caterpillar and cause its death.I stress that this toxin is naturally only found in the gut of a caterpillar.Now the bio tech scientists chose that toxin (I guess it sounded like an organic product and had friendly connotations) to insert into every cell of their BT corn , soybeans and cotton.So every part of the plant including the corn cob (that potentially cattle, pigs chooks and us eat ) is a registered pesticide!Of course the constant exposure of insect pests to the BT leads to resistance to it. The trash and pollen of the BT cotton crops has residual toxicity in the ground .The plant roots exude the toxin and mychorizal fungi are being killed off. Mychorizzal fungi are essential to plants, forests where it is destroyed start dying. It acts like the root hairs of a plant, and if you don’t have...to be continued

...... mychorizal fungi are being killed off. Mychorizzal fungi are essential to plants.Forests where it is destroyed start dying. It acts like the root hairs of a plant, and if you don’t have mychorrizal fungi, plants will only look good if they receive artificial fertilizer. It is my theory that this is why the traditional corn grown in Mexico grows well without purchased fertilizer but GM wont grow well without it.Its terrible that the traditional corn there has been contaminated with American GM corn . Waterways near the BT cotton crops in QLD are being effected by the BT pollen and trash... the water flea and caddis fly in streams , vital to ecosystems,are being harmed.This report available MADGE website.
I don’t use Dipel, the blue wrens around here feast on cabbage butterfly lavae.Every year I hear more owls,frogs, and helpful critters on our land.
Back to (As in round and round we go) the harm done to rats on GM potato diet, Would the Scottish government give these respected scientists so much money if there was a chance they would conduct fundamentally flawed experiments? Surley they would have many control group of rats or was it mice (and does it matter as long as they were the same creature in both groups?) eating non gm potatoes for 10 days.Check the article at the top of this discussion.

Merri bee, the fact the Scottish Government, or indeed any other Government, provided money for research doesn’t automatically make that research good. In this case, the research was fundamentally flawed by the fact that a potato diet is bad for rats. The researchers (and the Scottish Government) may have not have known that at the beginning of the trial. However, not to recognise that as a problem in interpreting the results makes the conclusions fundamentally flawed.

Bacillus thuringiensis is a bacterium that manufactures an insect toxin (actually it manufactures several). The protein made by plants is to all intents the same as one made by the bacterium. Oh and I am sure that if you fed Dipel to Monarch butterfly larvae they would die. There isn’t any evidence that Bt affects mychorrhiza on crops. Likewise, there is no evidence that Bt cotton in Australia has any negative impact on water or aquatic life. All the evidence points to a positive impact through the reduction in pesticides in water. http://www.cottonaustralia.com.au/facts/factsandfigures.aspx?id=14 http://www.cottonaustralia.com.au/library/publications/Biotechnology10yearsOff.pd

Merry christmas agronomist from Canada. I see the same ol myths have resurfaced once again. Keep up the fight to educate the public with the real science of ag biotech. Those who truly want to learn thank you for your efforts. Those who do not, well, do not.

cheers

Rob

Bob, I find the people who are pro GM are the ones who don’t want to learn. Maybe one day they will investigate and be as horrified as the rest of us. Agronomist tries to blind people with science. But even he would not pretend to know everything about plants, the human body and all their complex interactions. It is astonishing that some people have the arrogance to play around with the very foundation of all life... DNA, the carrier of genetic code, and have released their experiments into the environment to proliferate.If these people knew they would be held liable for the damage they inflict on non gm and organic agriculture, people and animals who eat their creations and the eco systems that suffer , they would never have emerged from the lab with this stuff.
Agro, your link to the Lancet re the rat experiment is still not working weeks later, but if you are so familiar with it and dismiss it as flawed, why would you be confused as to whether it was rats or mice? There is evidence aplenty that Bt pollen and crop debri is affecting life in nearby streams:
http://www.bioscienceresource.org/news/article.php?id=6
I will fight on for my grandchildrens right to eat natural, non GM broccoli and kale.

Merri bee, there is one problem with this forum and that is you can’t go back and correct errors in posts. I incorrectly wrote mice rather than rats earlier. You have picked that up. But I cannot change the post. A break occurred in the link due to the forum software. There is nothing I can do about that. You will have to copy and paste the link.

Merri bee, you made a specific claim that Bt cotton was affecting stream life in Australia. When I ask for evidence you sent me to an anti-GM blog. In all that blog, there is no mention of damage to streams in Australia. Instead what the blog author has done is cherry pick the data and fail to recognise that the studies on Daphnia used the equivalence of 50 g of ground up corn kernals/ L water, before they found any effect. You will not find such conditions in nature. Lower concentrations had no effect. The caddisfly study was similar and had to use more than 3 times the highest concentration they observed in streams to produce an effect. You will find some discussion of this blog on an earlier page http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=7685&page=0 Where links to other studies are given.

Rob, thanks for your support here.