Madeleine, I’m quite happy being Agronomist, thank you very much for your concern. I wouldn’t worry too much about Julie Newman’s perception skills, after all she also thinks I am Ian, Bill and David as well and a few others. I have no agenda to push here, so no need to publicise who I am. You can take or leave my comments, although I do try to provide references to back things up. You clearly have the better of me, I didn’t know there was a Monsanto or Bayer University, although Monsanto do call their Creve Coeur site a ‘campus’. I am sorry my links didn’t work. Trying to be too clever. Here are some that do. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?db=protein http://mips.gsf.de/genre/proj/mfungd/ And Westerns are just another way of identifying proteins. As for peer reviewed safety articles you should start with this list – There are more than 200 and most are peer reviewed http://gmopundit.blogspot.com/2007/06/150-published-safety-assessments-on-gm.html

Merri bee, good to know you have your farm running the way you want. I work with a lot of farmers who have similar desires, but they don’t all see the future of farming the way you do. My job is to work with them to get the best out of the system they want to use. To do that I have to gather knowledge about what goes on, not simply reinforcing prejudices by searching the internet. As to canola ‘contaminating’ wild radish, I suggest you look at this old piece of research. http://www.springerlink.com/content/fjljdtjd514enyx1/?p=4d5c0649acc14e2a8721e14b6b4b07ac&pi=0 They work somewhere near you I believe. You may be able to find the odd ‘contaminated’ wild radish, but they represent no threat at all to your kale. Unfortunately, GM canola is a benefit to someone other than Monsanto. Turns out these people are canola growers in Canada who benefit to the tune of a 10% yield benefit, 31 million litres less fuel used for cultivation per year, less herbicide used and $5.80 an acre more in their pockets. http://www.canola-council.org/uploads/biotechnology/manual/GMO/17908_Transgenic_Canola_1.pdf So the claims about yield, less chemical, etc. seem to be true.

Madeleine, I didn't think you were lillian, just that both of you were MADGE.

lillian, I still cannot find any further work on RNA allergies. I don't expect it to be splashed all over the news, just a couple of confirming studies or perhaps even a follow-up study on the original work. To date, as far as I can tell, it remains the only example of a reported RNA allergy, but there's no further work. None.
I found a review on the molecular biology of food allergies that mentions it, http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=3184363 but has doubts about it's veracity because some protein was left in the sample. Given the lack of follow-up, I'm inclined to agree.
I also cannot find the journal your review was published in, if you could provide a reference for it, I'd much appreciate it.

The author of that review mentioned earlier has some other interesting papers:http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12045422?ordinalpos=30&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_DefaultReportPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum
andhttp://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11344340?ordinalpos=36&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_DefaultReportPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum

These directly address the risk issue for allergies. I find them quite reasonable.

While I have heard of "alternative splicing", I think that everyone (including biotech-companies) have been aware of it for some time. I'm having trouble though, in digging out references explaining how single-exon genes are alternatively spliced, or any that show how the modified genes like the bt-toxin or GOX are alternatively spliced to produce allergens. Perhaps you could provide a link or just a reference for me?

I understand that the broad bean amylase inhibitor was shown to increase allergenicity in peas, but that one never made it to market and quite rightly too.

I will decline both your offers of discussing these issues off the forum, as I can navigate websites quite well by myself, thank you. Anything that needs to be said can be said here.

I'm not really sure what apricot jam or granna's cooking has to do with anything, as I'm pretty sure as most of her life my granna had food variably sprayed with ddt, organochlorines, organophosphates and a multitude of other pesticides. One thing I am glad of is that there is much less of those sorts of chemicals these days.

Lets think logically:
Why would GM canola yield more, use less fuel through less tillage, less chemical or improve farmers profits in Australia?

The GM part only confers tolerance to glyphosate which means it is ONLY a weed control tool. Glyphosate is non-residual and can ONLY be applied from 2-6 leaf stage. Unlike Canada, we don't start the season with a snow melt giving the moisture requirement we need to start weed germination. Unlike Canada, Australia's worst weeds in canola are radish and ryegrass (Canada do not have these weed problems) and both need residual control as they keep germinating with every rain. As there is no alternative post emergent wild radish or mustard control, these weeds will appear which will downgrade samples and reduce yields. Farmers already grow TT and Clearfield crops so our weeds are controlled and TT is a success because it gives post emergent control of wild radish and turnip.
That means that farmers need to use more chemical as the residual Trifluralin is applied when sowing to give residual control of the yield robbing ryegrass on emergence. Selectives may be needed after 6leaf stage. Also additional chemicals need to be applied to glyphosate for volunteer control.
Part of the resistance management plan is to replace glyphosate use in following rotations which means that either apply the far more toxic but less effective Sprayseed OR use tillage (NOT less tillage). Farmers in Australia already use minimum till so it does not mean less tillage, it means more tillage.
The difference is the cost. GM canola is astronomical and using basic calculations on seed cost and use only, farmers need around 12% increase in yield just to pay this years discounted costs.

So:
GM canola does not yield more as the GM part is nothing to do with yield.
GM canola gives less weed control than what we already have.
GM canola encourages more tillage which will mean more fuel.
GM canola costs far more which will mean a loss to farmers.

Remove the hype and you find its a scam.

Non-GM farmer: "Remove the hype and you find its a scam."

Perhaps. But no one is forcing you to take part in the scam. All the current legislation is doing is allowing individual farmers to make that assessment for themselves, rather than having your opinion forced on them.

It is possible you eventually won't able to grow non-GM because all your peers decide you are wrong, and so your sources of non-GM seeds dry up. I presume this is nothing new as it must happen with other seed varieties now.

All this has been pointed out over and over again in previous threads. Yet you raise it anew in every thread. It does get tiresome.

Hi Bugsy,
I'll answer your last post in list form:
- RNA, allergies and follow up studies, maybe the lack of follow up studies could have something to do with the research money not being available. Non-GM farmer gave an excellent description of what's happening to funding in this era of public/private partnerships in a previous post
- alternative splicing and the awareness of biotech companies. The article we are commenting on is all about how all the long held beliefs of genetics are being constantly overturned. The biotechs have to hold to the old science or their patents become unenforcable
- the study that found a GM pea caused allergies in mice underwent a level of testing that none of the GM food we are currently eating has done. This shows how threadbare the testing regime is.
- I offered to discuss things with you off list as at that time I thought you were a real person and may be interested in longer emails and deeper discussion. Never mind it will save me time!
- apricot jam and grandmothers. My grandmother grew up on a farm. She grew fruit and veg and raised rabbits in wartime England to keep her family fed. She thought it was extremely important to buy good quality food as there had been various nasty food adulterations in her day. She taught me a lot about health and nutrition. My father trained as a market gardener. He saw the introduction of pesticides in the 1940's. Luckily he read the instructions and either wore protective clothing or stayed away from them. He said after 4 years the pest infestations were as bad as ever. So I value the experiences and lessons taught to me by my parents and grandparents.

I'll finish off with a quick reply to rstuart. If everything is so wonderful why have US farmers created this website all about how they are being ripped off by big agribusiness? http://www.competitivemarkets.com/

I'm off to do the Chistmas shopping and, if the level of discussion doesn't improve, I'm not sure I'll be back.

Seasons greetings

Bugsy, You’re a lovely pseudonym and I’d love to listen to you and learn how you feel about GM stuff, but I gave you my email address because I thought you might like the recipe for jam.

It’s simple – a bit more apricots than sugar in weight, and a little bit of water. Boil it up.

It went really frothy early and was over-boiling but once I skimmed off the froth it boiled away quietly. People have different ways of telling if it’s ready. I spoon some onto a plate and wait for it to cool – then push a spoon backwards through it and if it ripples a little bit on the surface it’s near enough. I’d boiled up the jam jars and lids for 10 minutes beforehand.

I was remembering my grandmother because the gardenia had flowered. I also saved a lot of money on jam. That was all.

When my 6yo came home from school she hugged me and told me over and over again how much she loved me – she was very happy with the jam, and cut up apricots to make apricot crumble, so we didn’t have cherry pie after all.

Hi Lillian, fellow MADGEr – been doing some reading?! – the MADGEs are such good readers. What do you think about reading through the last of the 200 ‘safety studies’ by commercial companies of interest or offshoots verifying that if we feed our children on 15% GM feed and slaughter them in three months they’ll still have nice weight breasts and rumps? Would that be valuable? Did Bugsy say GOX? How is GOX relevant?

Bugsy, I wouldn’t talk GM with a pseudonym – it would be silly. It would be like eating pseudo-food. But indeed, anytime the plume de nom wants a chat or some jam, that would be lovely – I’ve lots of both.

Bronwyn, thanks for your kind words, and if you or Rojo would like the ...Continued story please don't hesitate to email.

Best wishes!