Genetically modified plants benefit everybody

This article is just GM propaganda anyone that can be bothered do the research can find proof that GM food has negative effects

I accept as a plant breeder

The author represents the biotech industry and his information is incomplete and misleading and some of it wrong and probably lies. If he is a scientist he knows better.

Gene transfer is happening everyday as bacteris pick up pieces of dna and incorporate it into their genome. One of the pieces of DNA found in nearly all modified food is an anti-biotic resistance gene.

WE KNOW that this gene gets transferred into some bacteria that come into contact with it. It was a European study that first broke that news and the author should be aware of it.

Gene altered plants have to do mor with the same resources available. Nutrition content is ALWAYS affected and is ALWAYS affected in a negative way.

When you genetically alter an organism to do more with the same resources (soil, air water) and the same tools (leaves, roots) then soemthing has to suffer as a result. When nutrition is not affected it will be because of a longer growing period allowing the plant to catch after having to do more, such as building an insecticide within itself.

The FDA is now requiring two insecticides to be manufactured by "pest resistant" plants to combat resistance build up to a single insecticide. Yes, insecticide in every part of the plant. NOW TWO INSECTICIDES IN EVERY "PEST RESISTANT" PLANT!!

When it is not altered to do more it is usually altered to be herbicide resistant to one or more of many different herbicides. this has resulted in canola becoming a weed pest when it spreads to farmland trying to grow anything other than canola. There are canola and wild relatives growing in the wild now with many of the herbicide resistant genes incorporated into their DNA, by accident!!!

Regarding his statement about GMOs not causing harm, he knows he is lying. The reason that it is not reported is that no one knows whether or not they are eating GMO because there are no requirements to label them. Many laboratory tests have shown that GMOs damage and kill lab animals. Arpad Pusztai has proved this and was attack by the biotech industry and the British government for his statements of fact.

Portin says; "This speaks to the farmers' confidence in gene manipulation." Portin again knows this is a lie. Farmers are not geneticists and trust they are being told the truth by people who are making a living by spreading this most contaminated of all foods around the world.

Portin says; "Still, in many European countries, genetically modified foods provoke attitudes that run contrary to common principles: Guilty until proven otherwise." Here he tries to portray Europeans as ignorant while admitting the greatest problem with GMOs, they are not proven safe.


Portin says; "Under European Union legislation...consumer must have - and under the regulations, does have - the freedom of choice." A very important point. In the USA and Canada consumers DON'T HAVE FREEDOM OF CHOICE. Additionally the FDA DOES NOT regulate GMOs. They have voluntary consultation guidelines, whcih no company has to comply with and puts no restrictions on what genes can be put into your food, to include human genes.

Portin says; "Contrary to what is sometimes claimed, growing insect resistant plants does not increase the use of insecticides. As the plant itself is poisonous to insects (but not to humans), there is less need for insecticide spraying."

1. The effects putting not only one but now TWO insecticides in these plants has NEVER been studied in humans or animals. They have fed some of the BT insecticide to animals, but it was an industry conducted study that was done. No independent study has ever been done using the poison plants them selves on humans or animals. No one has eaten whole food that is genetically modified. It is always found in processed foods where it is combined with other ingredients and the side effects are tempered and cannot be traced to any gene altered foods because NO ONE KNOWS where the gene altered food is or whether or not they have eaten any. If they get sick they go to the doctor and don't know what food they ate that day or the previous day that might have had GMO in it that poisoned them or made them ill.

This man, Portin, is a liar who makes his money supporting an industry that has lied to the American and Canadian people and manipulated regulators in both countries with bribes and high paying jobs to get the regulations they want.

Portin says; "Contrary to what is sometimes claimed, growing insect resistant plants does not increase the use of insecticides. As the plant itself is poisonous to insects (but not to humans), there is less need for insecticide spraying."

2. He admits that insecticide still needs to be sprayed on crops that are DNA modified to grow a pesticide in the plant. So not only will you be eating two different insecticides in the plant itself, you will have to eat also the pesticide residue from different insecticides that are sprayed onto the plant and get into it as well as on it.

Portin's aim is to help soread GMOs in Europe and AFrica where they are still tightly controlled. He wants to do away with labeling laws until the food is so contaminated we have no choice but to eat GMO.

This type of person also wants to contaminate all organically grown crops so that they will not compete with genetically modified crops.

Portin is interested in taking away your ability to eat healthy foods.

Food prices will also INCREASE if we don't put a stop to this. Farmers must pay 5-10 times as much for seed, a technology for every acre they plant adn must purchase and spread large amounts of chemical herbicide if the crop they grow is herbicide resistant (such as Round-Up Ready corn or Canola created by Monsanto corporation.)

Read how two of thousands of farmers are being sued by Monsanto for intellectual property infringement in Canada and the USA. Many other biotech companies are doing the same thing, as their plants spread into neighboring farms and distant farms.

http://www.percyschmeiser.com/

http://www.nelsonfarm.net/

Portin is a shill for the biotech industry and uses half-truths and lies to try to manipulate your minds.

Don't fall for it my friends in Europe. Fight the spread of gene altered crops and animals on your continent.

Sincerely,
Michael Polidori

Come on, the writer of this article must thing he's talking to the Beverly Hillbillies! If it really is so SAFE, and such a great product, it would be advertised on the packaging. Instead, they hide this information from us and won't label this rubbish in any way that informs the buyer what a great product it is.

It's just more over - processed food in the market place. I don't buy this arguement and I definitely wont buy any GMO product.

GM Foods may not solve the problems of food crisis but it may create the crisis and impact on human health as well as environmental impact.

I agree 100 % with the authors position.gm CROPS BENEFIT MORE THAN THEY HARM!!!
there are several points to be considered. Genetic engineering has been used for the benefit of human beings for many years. The most relevant products resulting of genetic engineering are products for treating a variety of diseases lets think about Diabetes :almost all insulin used today is genetically engineered: a bacteria has received human insulin gene and t he hormone is produced by the engineerd bacteria in a culture media this insulin is totally human and solves the problem of insulin antibodies or rejection to insulin from different animal SPECIES which was the treatment some years ago!!!
No one is complaining about that.!!!! Why so?
There are no reports on adverse effects by insulin as it is produced in our days!!! other examples of GOOD BIOTECHNOLOGY and GENETIC EnGINEERING are vaccines, cancer drugs. bIOTECHNOLOGY IS DEVOTED to solve problems in the world like diseases, food production, climate change etc.
Why should we be suspicious of GM Crops? It is already proven that foods made of GM crops do not provide more risk than normal crops!!!
I find more risky to our health the fact that crops are constantly sprayed with highly toxic pesticides, herbicides!!!
If the GM crop origin of some foods has to appear on labels of food why not a list of the different agrochemicals used during the cultivation process?
LETS GO BACK TO THINK THAT SCIENTISTS WORK FOR THE BENEFIT OF HUMANKIND!!!
tHERE IS NO INTEREST IN PRODUCING, MONSTERS, DISEASES, VENOMS ETC!!!

GMO was given blanket approval with no legitimate research into long term effects. Scientists who have studied it have recognized the dangers and have recommended much more study on the issue. The documentary "The World According to Monsanto" is an excellent start to researching this topic. GM crops end up reducing crop yields, not increasing them. Thousands of farmers in India have commited suicide since being suckered into using GM crops that have quickly bankrupted them and left their families starving. Monsanto (producer of 90% of GM products) has stated that their goal is to patent and control the food supply of the entire world. This is part of a larger plan to reduce the earth's population by about 90%. If you care about your life and the lives of your family, you will research GMO's, and if you research the issue you will oppose them. There is a reason that they are banned in Europe and in many countries around the world. Wake up America!

The Biotechnology Industry Organisation, Monsanto and Petter Portin claim Genetically Manipulated (GM) agriculture is a success and global. Not so!!

In 1996 Monsanto launched GM soy, corn, canola and cotton in the USA, with two GM traits - tolerance to lethal weed killers (so farmers can spray more often and at higher doses without killing the crop) or making their own built-in Bt insect toxins (that harm the caterpillars of just two insects). But in 2008 only the same four crops and two single gene traits are all that's commercially available.

This is not a maturing technology. If you were still using Windows '95 you'd be wondering too. Despite Monsanto, Bayer and an army of publicly funded scientists working for 25 years to genetically manipulate multiple gene traits - such as drought or salt tolerance, and nitrogen fixation in grains - they have failed.

GM crops are not a global industry either. Any country which doesn't grow commercial GM soy, corn, canola or cotton should be regarded as restricting or banning them. Most of Africa, Asia and the Middle East, for instance, will not allow any GM, at least until the Biosafety Protocol - the first treaty negotiated under the Convention on Biological Diversity - is finalised and implemented. It has liability provisions and precautionary mechanisms for the international transfer, handling and use of living modified (GM) organisms.

As Petter parrots, the annual report of industry front group ISAAA for 2007 (www.isaaa.org) reported that 23 countries grew GM crops on 114.8 million hectares. But this included the double counting of 19% of GM crops with both the herbicide tolerance and Bt insect toxin traits 'stacked' in each plant. And 15 of the 23 countries grew small areas of GM that were little more than commercial trials that could be eliminated when they failed or caused environmental impacts.

ISAAA's slide show further inflates the countries growing GM. For instance, the whole of Australia's 7,692,024 square km is shown as GM on the basis that 70,000 hectares of GM cotton (700 sq km) was grown last year. ISAAA calls any country with over 50,000 hectares (500 sq km) of GM a mega-GM country. Mega = million, and plenty of individual Australian farms are larger than 50,000 hectares.

What the ISAAA slide shows is that:
1. 98.6% (113.2 million hectares) of commercial GM crops grew in just 8 countries;
2. 1.4% (1.6 million hectares) of commercial GM crops were grown in 15 countries;
3. >88% (101.4 million hectares) were grown in 5 countries in North and South America.
Most was for US animal feedlots or ethanol production, not human consumption.
4. the USA alone still grows over 50% of all commercial GM crops.

Petter also notes ISAAA's claim that 10.3 million farmers grew GM crops in 2007. That's way less than 1% of the world's 1.3 billion growers!

Conclusion:

Of 195 countries http://geography.about.com/od/countryinformation/a/capitals.htm globally, around 172 countries - plus the 60 Territories, Colonies, and Dependencies of independent countries - remain GM-free and ban or severely restrict GM crop use. GM agriculture is not a global industry and GM crops are a stalled technology. BIO, Monsanto and the GM industry represented by Petter, want us to believe a lie.

SIR,
KINDLY INCLUDE AUTHENTICATED SCIENTIFIC DATA ON FOOD SAFETY FOR ""MAIZE"" gm CROP EATEN BY ANIMALS AND BIRDS AND FISHES AND FORAGING HARMLESS INSECTSHUMANS MONKEYS ETC.THIS TYPE OF ARTICLES SAYS IT IS ONLY "TV ADVETISEMENT"

Thank you for your clear and dispassionate article. It gives a good explanation of many of the key issues relating to GM.

Unfortunately, this topic has become very polarised (the tone of many of those posting criticism here suggests they are already so committed to an anti-GM position that all the evidence presented by all the Professors in Genetics in the world would not persuade them otherwise), so this type of reasoned article, from a science and evidence base, is very useful to those of us trying to form a view based on fact and practical risk analysis rather than polemic and rumour.

if it was soooooooo good why on wikipedia did it say that people didnt like the idea and they stopped buying modified food and this wasnt helpful to me because i wanted to know why they make genetically modified food and they try to make the food better when their adding chemicals to the food which would make it more dangerous to eat

I definitely agree with Willsey,
If GM was so marvelous it would be in all the adverts.
Supermarkets like Tesco who don't miss a trick to extract every penny from our pockets would put up trumpeted two foot high letters on posters outside their stores and on TV advertisements, to show that "every little helps" would they not?
So GM is a "no no" until they can show that it will absolutely not cause any problem with human heath, including "Antibiotic resistance" we should insist that we do NOT go down that road, one way to ensure this is to only vote for a government who cares enough about it's people to ban all planting, (even odd bits here and there) yes, I have seen the rogue Rape plants that seem to be making their own "March of the Triffids" in the lanes around Cambridgeshire, and anyway who cannot only wonder at the beauty of the occasional Poppy in the cornfield, is it such a demonic thing that it must be eradicated at all costs like a plague?
What about the bees and other flying insects, they are not immune to the insecticides sprayed on the GM crops, when the growers have eradicated all of these, what is going to pollinate all the fruit trees, the crops, and all the other needs of the growing plants, where for instance are the farmers going to get their hay from when the grasses do not grow anymore, so we could become quite a barren land, what an apocalypse to face for the future, or more likely our children, they would be in a very bad state indeed.
We want to be able to trust the food we eat, not wondering whether we are doing harm eventually to our bodies.
Anyone for a hearty casserole made with GM free ingredients.

Genetic engineering is like forcing evolution probable at a rate clearly millions of times greater than what nature does that too in a most unnatural way.

This unnatural way not only wipes certain genes in the plants but it already affecting other animals and creatures. Millions of cattle are dying and taking ill due to BT cotton, again a genetically engineered plant growin in India and some other countries.

(Dr Sudhir Kumar Kaura is a plant geneticist and biotechnologist. At a young age of less than 35 years he started a war against genetic engineering. Dr Kaura worked for over 11 years in a genetic engineering laboratory and watched all the proceedings. The lab. was funded by the Governement of India and the Rockefeller Foundation, USA. With over 11 years of active involvement in a a genetic engineering research laboratory and over 7 years of his own personal war against Genetically Engineered Plant, Dr Kaura is now quoted world over including BBC World for his numerous studies on ill effects of BT cotton on animals, humans, soil and environment.)

this didnt help my project at all

this helped a lot!

It is my belief that the reason GM foods were created was because men with money dont like the expanding population it grates them so much that they desided to give the population food that destroys the natural God created food that we have and food that is toxic to insects and as Ive read toxic to the sheep that ate it so much that they died about l,000 of them. What pray do they think it does to humans. Humans are part of nature we are not separate. If this food is so great for us why not be honest and label it as you wish to promote it so much but cowards that you are you dont . Ive heard that 2,000 of safeways home brand is gm foods so what this means is the poorest in the community who can afford organic foods will have the most toxic overload. It has even been put in baby foods where soya is used.

Just as the world was wanting to go organic but finding it so expensive well it didnt have government backing like Gm dont they get like 50 million pounds for supposed research into it lol and organic a product which is far better only l.5 million. As you can see the scales are heavily swayed towards gm foods. Foods we dont need in Britain as we have sufficiant food yet we are forced to eat because the gm food lobby are well in with goverments and dont need to label there food.

lWhat right have scientists and the rich men behind it all to choose if people live or die why dont they stop playing God with peoples lives. How dare you mutilate our food crops.
Billions of people dont want your foods but they are forced to eat them and grow them shame on you. AS AN INFORMED MOTHER i SAY WE DONT WANT YOUR GM FOODS WE DONT NEED THEM AND I HOPE THERE IS ONE GOVERNMENT OFFICIAL WHO WILL STOP IT BEFORE ITS TOO LATE AND YOU DESTROY THE WHOLE FOOD CHAIN . i personally would pay for you to stop producing it via taxes if thats what it takesj

hmm u say that gm foods dosent harm the enveronment and the people consuming it then why is that many part of the people think that this is not good for health and may lead to many side effects that to cause our life ........??
and if the gm food grown on a farm is subjected to a drastic enveronmental changes lik climatic condition will it have a effect on the modified plant and can it be rectifiec by the farmers by them self what is the alternative for this

this genetically modified foods is negative we shuoldent be doing this!!!!!!

WE MUST STAND TOGETHER ALL OF US AROUND THE PLANET TO PUT MONSANTO OUT OF
ITS MISERY!!! THE PEOPLE MUST AWAKEN TO THE EVIL OF THESE SCIENTISTS AND JOIN TOGETHER TO SAVE OUR FOOD SUPPLY. If a judge sides with evil Monsanto, vote him out!
Do your due diligence folks before buying ANY food now. The big food monopolies are buying
up ALOT of the organic small companies and most of us are unaware of this. Con-Agra, Kellogg, Heinz, Smuckers, Pepsi, Coca Cola, etc!!! We must let our representatives know we want clean, unadulterated food, water, soil and air!! This is more VITAL now than ever before in the history of our country. If you take a backseat now, one day, you will wake up but by then, it will be too late and you will have to answer to your children!!! Go to organicconsumers.org Get educated on what is going on behind your backs!

I am confused i don't really understand this artical and i was wondering what exaclly is the bad side of genetically modified food.

I was wondering to all those that oppose GM! what about the 1000 year old farmer who did do GM (many genes at once) and now we have a large maize... and we have a large grass = wheat! hey, all they did was GENETICALLY MODIFY the little crop with a big one... but now days, we are becoming so sensitive to altering crops that we just manipulate one or two genes for the benefit of farming! and some narrow minded people come up with their ignorance and say that GM is bad! LOL

All live organisms change,which we call evolution.
If one organism changes due to interference of say: radiation,volcanic eruption,flood,drought or other natural phenomena, than related or neighbouring species also change to adapt to its changed environment, or dies if it becomes useless. Since all changes occur in different time and place zones, the adaptations of these organisms to their changed environments also occur on a different level.
GMO's on the other hand, no matter what methods are being used, forces their surrounding organisms to adapt or die and because they cannot adapt fast enough to their new neighbour they will most likely die, as (in GMO plants) their root systems do not harbour the right bacteria to complement the surrounding plant forms. Example: peg one square meter of natural growth, determine how many plant species are there,you'll find at least 75plus species, all living in harmony. Now take out one or two and return next year, you'll find that other species have left the scene. Reason? The supported each other.
Say NO to GMO.

To Peter Portin, Al, Australia II and Camila Monroy...

You three cannot think or you are victims of the industry's propaganda or you work for the industry...

GMO are not needed to feed the world. By UN, WTO and USA figures we produce enough food to feed an extra 3 BILLION people every year. Distribution and greed are the problem... POOR PEOPLE starve, by the hundreds of thousands every year...

GMO are being pushed by corporations that intend to profit from owning all crops grown in the world. That has been and remains their only aim, and through realization of ownership will come trillions of dollars in profit and technology fees. They are not interested in feeding starving people, they are not interested in improving your health and they are not interested in advancing our scientific knowledge. MONEY is their ONLY motivation. They will use propaganda, lies and contamination to push their agenda. They have bought and paid for favorable decisions from regulatory agencies, discouraged testing and avoided labeling in Canada and the USA. They have sued and continue to sue farmers for patent infringement. The lawsuit side business has been most profitable for companies like Monsanto and Liberty and Bayer, using their deep pockets to threaten and harass innocent farmers while contaminating conventional and organic farmland across the nation and around the world.

GMO that are currently being grown are usually DNA altered with one of two modifications.

1. Herbicide resistance accounts for approximately 80% of today's GMO. This means that to control weeds herbicide is sprayed directly onto these crops. All regulatory agencies in all western countries have raised the allowable herbicide residue levels by factors of hundreds or thousands of times to allow these crops to be brought to market.

In addition to poisonous herbicide residue, these plants will have "ordinary" insecticide residue and nutritional deficiencies common to current conventionally grown mono-culture crops. These crops are the most contaminated and 2nd most nutritionally deficient food we have ever eaten... This is not alarmist, it is just factual.

2. "Pest resistance", where two or more insecticides are grown inside crops, account for most of the remaining 20% of GMO.

In spite of two insecticides being produced by these plants conventional insecticides still need to be sprayed.

Two insecticides are now being produced by plants that are supposed to be using resources to create nutrition. Nutrition is always affected in a negative way in these crops so altered. Coupled with resource deficient conventional farming and nutrition reductions due to redirecting plant resources to insecticide production, "pest resistant" GMO is the most pesticide contaminated (insecticide and herbicide) and nutritionally deficient food we have ever eaten.

Both ways of growing these crops costs MORE money to produce than conventional or organic farming methods;

1. The gene altered seed costs 3-5 times more and farmers cannot save seed. They must buy new seed every year.

2. There is a technology fee for every acre of land planted with GMO every time it is planted. If a farmer grows two crops in a season he pays for the seed twice and pays the technology fee twice.

3. Pest resistant plants offer no yield advantage over conventional crops and usually yield less. The seed costs more and there's the technology fee plus the conventional insecticide that still needs to be sprayed (though admittedly it is not as much, so there is some savings there). Coupled with the nutritional deficiencies and other higher costs, the consumer and the farmer stand to lose money on these plants, while the bio-tech companies get fat with money.

4. Herbicide resistant crops do have a substantially increased yield, but the price for the environmental and health consequences that extra crop will cause is too high.

We have never consumed food with herbicide residue before Our government Regulatory agencies and leaders are allowing astronomically high increases in residue levels of this poison. Agent Orange is a herbicide produced by Monsanto. While Agent Orange is not being used on crops today, I use it here as an example of what happens to PEOPLE when a company puts profits ahead of the health of human beings and the planet's environmental welfare.

Monsanto blindly profited from Agent Orange's use and is again blindly profiting from the production of crop seed that is resistant to the company's herbicide Round-up. Farmers have to buy expensive seed from Monsanto and then buy the herbicide they will spray on the crop from Monsanto. They also have to buy insecticide to spray on this crop. More cost and more food contamination and much more environmental pollution.

In spite of the increases in yield the herbicide modification creates, the cost to our health and the environment is much too high. And the costs again to the farmer will erase any profit he makes from increased yield. Increased yield itself will drop the price of his crop, and again the middle men get fat at a cost to the farmer and the consumer.

NOW A SPECIAL NOTE TO CAMILA... You don’t understand what diabetes is or how the “miracle” insulin affects diabetics. Do some research before you offend more sick people.

Diabetes is now believed to be an immune system disorder with the immune system attacking insulin producing cells. Instead of fixing the immune system they “correct” a symptom of the problem, insulin deficiency. This keeps a steady stream of customers coming to their doors and to the doctors and hospitals who are unconscionably profiting off of people’s illness. Diabetics become dependent on expensive insulin rather than having medical science correct the problem in the immune system that is causing the damage.

This goes on today with a plethora of “medicines”. Known symptoms of auto-immune disorders today are arthritis, psoriasis, fibromyalgia, multiple sclerosis, allergies and diabetes. Please understand what I have just stated... These “diseases” are SYMPTOMS of the immune system attacking part of your body or a substance that it is not supposed to attack.

Treatments include such poisons as Remicade, Enbrel, Humira, Avonex, Kineret, Orencia, Rituxan, Remicade and on and on... These drugs have one thing in common... they turn off part of your immune system to halt the progression of your symptoms (which “doctors” call “disease”), and you spend LOTS of money to be “diagnosed” and “treated”.

As an example, arthritis used to be treated with pain medications. This was symptom treatment, because it didn’t fix the joints that were causing the pain, this did not reduce the damage or rate of damage that was being done to your joints, this just reduced the pain and/or inflammation.

Then along comes Enbrel and the progression of the arthritis stops, while you take the pain medication to move. Now, taking TWO medicines, you can stop the arthritis from getting worse and reduce the pain so you can move more freely.

Enbrel works by interfering in the production of TNF, a product of your immune system. Instead of finding out why your immune system is producing too much TNF and correcting that, they find a poison that stops its production. This opens you up to other infections, while not fixing the original problem. This keeps you on Enbrel forever... an may cause other problems for which you will have to take different medications.

So please Camila, no more analogies using medical situations...

Michael Polidori

Sir:

As I am writing my dissertation, and and befuddled by all the information - can you tell me, in your opinion the very most important fact to make?

I thank you for your knowledge and your time.

Effie Abrahamsen

The United States FDA (Food and Drug Administration) states that genetically modified crops are "substantially equivalent" to conventional and organic crops, and therefore require no regulation.

The only exception is when a known toxin is added to a plant associated with human food consumption. Then the FDA and EPA as well as the USDA get involved.

Companies can market all other plants, even food crops, without prior FDA approval.

The FDA has a voluntary consultation procedure for gene altered crops. No safety testing, no regulation.

On the other hand the USDA is now in charge of regulating the organic crop industry. The safest of all foods we could ever consume is also the only regulated food. The FDA also shares responsibility for this over-regulation and is bent on driving organic foods from the marketplace with rules at the point of sale designed to make organic more and more expensive to market profitably.

http://www.organic-center.org/