|
|
 | | From: | David Kendra | | Subject: | Peer Reviewed Publications on the Safety of GM Foods | | Date: | Tue, 07 Dec 2004 00:20:18 GMT |
|
|
 | Peer Reviewed Publications on the Safety of GM Foods
- Dr. Christopher Preston, AgBioView, Dec. 3, 2004. www.agbioworld.org
Complete cited references are at:
http://agbioworld.org/biotech_info/articles/peer-reviewed-pubs.html
'Results of a search of the PubMed database for publications on feeding
studies for GM crops.'
Introduction. There has been considerable recent comment on the lack of
peer-reviewed scientific studies on the effect of GM food and feed on
livestock, other animals and humans. A report by Pryme and Lembcke (2003)
described 10 such studies. This report and the small number of studies is
often quoted by groups opposed to the use of GM crops as justification for
banning their use in the food chain. To determine the current state of the
literature, I conducted a search of the PubMed database for publications on
this topic.
Methods. The search strategy I used included the search terms (genetically
and modified and food) coupled with crop species with known genetic
modifications, including maize, soybean, canola, cotton, potatoes, tomatoes
and peas. Searches also included the word transgenic instead of genetically
and modified. A large number of hits were obtained by this search strategy,
with most having little or nothing to do with GM food tests.
I collected papers if that had:
1. An abstract in PubMed;
2. Were a research publication, not a review or commentary
3. Reported a feeding study involving food or food products from GM crops
(not purified proteins from other sources such as bacteria or other GM
products) in the abstract;
4. Test subjects were mammals, birds or fish; and
5. Reported at least one measure of comparison with non-GM food.
Results. In all, 42 publications abstracted in PubMed passed these tests.
The search strategy extracted most of the studies covered by Pryme and
Lembcke (2003). The ones absent were not apparently abstracted in PubMed
(e.g. Pusztai 1998) or were reviews (Pusztai 2002). My search uncovered
several publications between 1999 and 2001 that were not captured by Pryme
and Lembcke (2003).
Of the 42 publications, most examined the effects of feeding GM crop
products to livestock including cattle, pigs and poultry. A smaller number
examined effects on rats and mice with two on fish. As reported in the
abstracts of the publications, 36 studies found no significant effect of GM
crop products on the parameters measured or concluded GM and non-GM products
were equivalent. Four studies reported a positive effect of the GM feed
(however, two of these were GM plants engineered for improved food quality)
and two reported negative effects. The studies reporting negative effects
were published in 1998 and 1999 (references 3 and 4 in the list). Since
2000, 35 publications have reported no important differences or positive
effects of feeding GM crops.
Almost two thirds (27) the publications extracted from the database have
been published since 2002. Many of these examined the potential effects
of GM crop on livestock performance and were clearly aimed at determining
whether the reports of dangers of GM crops to livestock in the press were
true.
Conclusions
There are at least 42 publications extractable from the PubMed database that
describe research reports of feeding studies of GM feed or food products
derived from GM crops. The overwhelming majority of publications report that
GM feed and food produced no significant differences in the test animals.
The two studies reporting negative results were published in 1998 and 1999
and no confirmation of these effects have since been published. Many studies
have been published since 2002 and all have reported no negative impact of
feeding GM feed to the test species.
References
Pryme, IF, Lembcke R. 2003. In vivo studies on possible health consequences
of genetically modified food and feed - with particular regard to
ingredients consisting of genetically modified plant material. Nutr Health
17:1-8.
Pusztai A. 1998. SOAFED flexible fund project RO818 (cited in Pryme and
Lembcke 2003).
Psztai A. 2002. Can science give us the tools for recognizing possible
health risks of GM food'? Nutr. Health 16:73-84.
Appendix
List of publications collected from PubMed by year at :
http://agbioworld.org/biotech_info/articles/peer-reviewed-pubs.html
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| | From: | Torsten Brinch | | Subject: | Re: Peer Reviewed Publications on the Safety of GM Foods | | Date: | Wed, 08 Dec 2004 21:52:27 +0100 |
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| GM Crop Safety Tests 'Flawed,' New Scientific Paper Shows
November 16, 2004
- A peer-reviewed scientific paper published today in Biotechnology
and Genetic Engineering Reviews debunks the myth that genetically
modified (GM) crops are thoroughly tested, regulated and proven safe.
The paper, "Safety Testing and Regulation of Genetically Engineered
Foods" [1], reveals fundamental flaws in how biotech companies test
and the U.S. government regulates GM crops. The paper thus raises
serious questions about whether GM foods, which have been on the
market since 1994, are in fact safe, as claimed by the biotech
industry and U.S. regulators. [2]
The scientific paper includes a comprehensive case study of two types
of insecticide-producing GM corn (chiefly the MON810 variety of
biotech giant Monsanto Co. ), showing how flawed testing and
regulation permitted these varieties onto world markets despite
evidence that they could cause food allergies. The European Union
recently approved 17 corn hybrids derived from MON810 over the
objections of several member states.
Authors Dr. David Schubert (cell biologist and medical researcher at
California 's Salk Institute) and William Freese (research analyst
with Friends of the Earth U.S) base their meticulously documented,
25-page paper on nearly 100 sources, including little-known U.S.
regulatory documents and unpublished studies by biotech companies. [3]
"One thing that surprised us is that U.S. regulators rely almost
exclusively on information provided by the biotech crop developer, and
those data are not published in journals or subjected to peer review,"
said co-author Schubert.
Added Freese: "In one case, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
ignored a published study by an Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
scientist suggesting that GM corn could cause food allergies, and
instead asked Monsanto and Syngenta to essentially re-do FDA's
analysis."
The US is the world's largest exporter of GM crops and accounts for
nearly two-thirds of all biotech crops planted globally. GM soy and GM
corn account for 83 percent of all GM crops planted on the planet.
"The picture that emerges from our study of U.S. regulation of GM
foods is a rubber-stamp 'approval process' designed to increase public
confidence in, but not ensure the safety of, genetically engineered
foods," said Schubert.
"GM food regulation in the U.S. bears as little relation to good
science as the typical used car ad to the true state of the
automobile. Both are designed to sell a product," added Freese.
"We outline a testing scheme that would be a first step toward putting
regulation of GM foods on a scientific footing," said Schubert. "It's
quite similar to science-based testing recommended by several European
teams," he added.
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| | From: | Klaus Wiegand | | Subject: | Re: Peer Reviewed Publications on the Safety of GM Foods | | Date: | Sat, 18 Dec 2004 16:46:13 GMT |
|
|
| On Tue, 07 Dec 2004 00:20:18 GMT, "David Kendra"
wrote:
>Peer Reviewed Publications on the Safety of GM Foods
>
GM FOOD SAFETY RESEARCH: WHY HAS IT NOT TAKEN PLACE?
Robert Vint of GENETIC FOOD ALERT has written a letter (a slightly
shortened version is below) to Prof Mike Gasson, head of the UK
government's Advisory Committee on Novel Foods and Processes (ACNFP).
Gasson is also a member of the European Food Safety Authority's GMO
Panel and Gasson is a consultant to Danisco Venture - a venture
capital company that invests in biotech companies. For full profile:
http://www.gmwatch.org/profile1.asp?PrId=176
We'll publish Prof Gasson's reply, if any.
---
Dear Professor Gasson,
GM FOOD SAFETY RESEARCH - Why has it not taken place?
.... Browsing through the latest three editions of the British Journal
of Nutrition I found quite a few feeding studies assessing the effects
of whole foods on animals (usually without harming them) or on human
volunteers. One looked at the effects of Jarlsberg cheese on blood
serum levels in 22 human volunteers. Another assessed the effects of a
new barley variety on cholesterol levels in pigs. A third looked at
the effect of Camembert cheese on intestinal microbiota in rats...
The latest edition of the (American) Journal of Nutrition likewise
reports on the effects of the Traditional Mediterranean Diet on
Obesity in a Spanish Population - involving over 3000 human
volunteers...
In the archives of both publications there are a vast number of such
reports. As all these studies are published in academic journals they
will have been peer reviewed and they are all available to the public
and the scientific community for further independent evaluation. It is
clear that professional nutritionists assess the long- and short-term
effects of a wide variety of whole foods in this manner as a matter of
course.
The safety of GM foods and the possible long-term effects on both
humans and farm animals of eating them has been, as you will know only
too well, a burning issue since late 1998 - the date of the "Pusztai
Case". For the last five years over 200 non-governmental
organisations, under the umbrella of the Five Year Freeze alliance,
have been demanding a moratorium on GM foods until they have been
demonstrated to be safe beyond reasonable doubt. Virtually the entire
population of Europe has chosen not to eat such foods whilst such
uncertainty remains. The entire insurance industry has failed to
obtain access to reassuring research data and so have advised their
members to add exclusion clauses to avoid liability for any health
effects of GM foods. The European food industry has decided not to use
such ingredients. None of them want to know about gene expression or
substantial equivalence, they want to know what happens when you eat
the stuff year on year.
And yet survey after survey continues to confirm the almost total
absence of long-term, independent, published, peer-reviewed studies of
the effects of feeding GM foods to humans or animals. ... I'm
interested to find out why this research has not taken place.
One claim is that such research is unnecessary. It is claimed that US
citizens have eaten GM crops for years without any effect. Yet during
this period many health problems have increased in the USA (including
soya and maize allergies) and these have cost the US medical service
dearly. There has been no attempt to find out whether these correlate
in any way with GM food consumption. There has been no post-release
monitoring of the population. No coroner or doctor is in a position to
record any symptoms, even death, as resulting from GM foods because
no-one knows what symptoms there could be. Whether or not the products
are safe they are being rejected by consumers and food manufacturers.
Surely the economic impact of this alone indicates the necessity of
such research.
Another claim is that such research is expensive - but surely the food
manufacturers and importers and the major insurance companies can
afford to pay for independent research that could open up an entire
new market to them? After all, the examples of research that I have
listed above would not appear to be especially expensive. And how much
will it cost the economy if we make the wrong decisions in the absence
of such research?
Another claim (made verbally by GM industry lobbyists) is that such
research would be 'Luddite' and 'anti-science' because it would slow
or obstruct the introduction of food and crop biotechnology. Make of
that claim what you wish! I for one am pro-science in the sense that I
would like more rigorous safety research, not less.
Yet another claim is that no-one is interested carrying out or
publishing such research - yet it has been by far the most significant
food controversy of the last decade. The UK government was certainly
interested enough at one point to employ Dr Pusztai to carry out its
official feeding studies. At that time the Government felt that such
long-term whole food feeding studies were possible, necessary and
affordable. Why does the government no longer think this?
At the time Dr Pusztai was sacked, silenced and publicly disgraced, a
key argument used by the government was that research was not valid
until it was published and peer-reviewed (I refer to the time before
Dr Pusztai had the research peer-reviewed and published in the Lancet,
despite threats to the editor). Does this not strengthen the case for
ensuring that the public and consumer groups, the food manufacturers
and insurers have direct access to published and peer-reviewed feeding
studies to provide reassurance? Yet the reality seems to be that the
sacking of Dr Pusztai marks the final end of public GM safety research
in the UK. The Government terminated the research programme, decided
not to repeat or improve Dr Pusztai's experiments and has never since
commissioned any such research.
Not only has such government research been terminated but independent
scientists wishing to carry out such research have been made to
understand that their department or institute may lose funding if they
are involved in 'irresponsible' research. Scientists have been denied
access to the GM crop varieties and null cassette isotopes. Of the
very few published papers on GM food safety that we have been able to
identify, half were industry-funded and reported negative results, the
other half were independent and all raised safety concerns. All the
scientists raising concerns have subsequently been subjected to
campaigns of intimidation or ridicule. The only two independent
scientists on the government's GM Science Review panel, Dr Andrew
Stirling and Professor Carlo Leifert, were likewise threatened as a
result of raising their concerns.
The two hundred or more organisations in the Five Year Freeze alliance
have demanded a moratorium on GM foods until adequate research has
been published to confirm its safety beyond reasonable doubt. My
impression - and it is a widespread impression - is that the UK
government and the biotech industry has instead decided that there
will be a moratorium on the safety research until the products are on
the shelves.
We would welcome reassurance that the ACNFP and related bodies are not
trying to hide the facts and that such research will be published -
because it must now be clear to you that there is no hope of these
products ever being sold in Europe in the absence of public access to
this data.
Yours sincerely, Robert Vint, Director
(source: gmwatch)
------
10 research papers of which i (and almost all of the readers here) do
not know how many are industry-sponsored in about 10 years of GM
technology (a search on "IBT +fraud" gives a lot of insight) - makes 1
every year.. for such an important technology the food supply of the
world should depend on ??
what do we get instead ?
invaluable research on the effects of Jarlsberg cheese on blood serum
levels, the effects of a new barley variety on cholesterol levels in
pigs and the effect of Camembert cheese on intestinal microbiota in
rats...certainly worth immediate publication in the "journal of most
important research"
and by arguing on safety you're on the wrong trip:
there is little evidence that academic competence is critically
important to adults in most walks of life."
- Jencks, Christopher. "A Reappraisal of the Most Controversial
Educational Document of Our Times,"
when will we finally see an evident advantage by GM in agriculture for
those, who should pay for it ? as a agricultural scientist you can
easily convince me of the advantages of RR corn (or beets, when young
i howed 100s of acres by hand while even enemployed people unwilling
to get hired), being also a consumer the advantages are not visible,
and therefore even less discussable.
klaus
|
|
| | From: | Gordon Couger | | Subject: | Re: Peer Reviewed Publications on the Safety of GM Foods | | Date: | Sun, 19 Dec 2004 11:47:31 -0600 |
|
|
| Klaus Wiegand wrote:
> On Tue, 07 Dec 2004 00:20:18 GMT, "David Kendra"
> wrote:
>
>
>>Peer Reviewed Publications on the Safety of GM Foods
>>
>
>
>
> GM FOOD SAFETY RESEARCH: WHY HAS IT NOT TAKEN PLACE?
>
> Robert Vint of GENETIC FOOD ALERT has written a letter (a slightly
> shortened version is below) to Prof Mike Gasson, head of the UK
> government's Advisory Committee on Novel Foods and Processes (ACNFP).
> Gasson is also a member of the European Food Safety Authority's GMO
> Panel and Gasson is a consultant to Danisco Venture - a venture
> capital company that invests in biotech companies. For full profile:
> http://www.gmwatch.org/profile1.asp?PrId=176
> We'll publish Prof Gasson's reply, if any.
> ---
>
> Dear Professor Gasson,
>
> GM FOOD SAFETY RESEARCH - Why has it not taken place?
>
> ... Browsing through the latest three editions of the British Journal
> of Nutrition I found quite a few feeding studies assessing the effects
> of whole foods on animals (usually without harming them) or on human
> volunteers. One looked at the effects of Jarlsberg cheese on blood
> serum levels in 22 human volunteers. Another assessed the effects of a
> new barley variety on cholesterol levels in pigs. A third looked at
> the effect of Camembert cheese on intestinal microbiota in rats...
>
> The latest edition of the (American) Journal of Nutrition likewise
> reports on the effects of the Traditional Mediterranean Diet on
> Obesity in a Spanish Population - involving over 3000 human
> volunteers...
>
> In the archives of both publications there are a vast number of such
> reports. As all these studies are published in academic journals they
> will have been peer reviewed and they are all available to the public
> and the scientific community for further independent evaluation. It is
> clear that professional nutritionists assess the long- and short-term
> effects of a wide variety of whole foods in this manner as a matter of
> course.
>
> The safety of GM foods and the possible long-term effects on both
> humans and farm animals of eating them has been, as you will know only
> too well, a burning issue since late 1998 - the date of the "Pusztai
> Case". For the last five years over 200 non-governmental
> organisations, under the umbrella of the Five Year Freeze alliance,
> have been demanding a moratorium on GM foods until they have been
> demonstrated to be safe beyond reasonable doubt. Virtually the entire
> population of Europe has chosen not to eat such foods whilst such
> uncertainty remains. The entire insurance industry has failed to
> obtain access to reassuring research data and so have advised their
> members to add exclusion clauses to avoid liability for any health
> effects of GM foods. The European food industry has decided not to use
> such ingredients. None of them want to know about gene expression or
> substantial equivalence, they want to know what happens when you eat
> the stuff year on year.
>
> And yet survey after survey continues to confirm the almost total
> absence of long-term, independent, published, peer-reviewed studies of
> the effects of feeding GM foods to humans or animals. ... I'm
> interested to find out why this research has not taken place.
>
> One claim is that such research is unnecessary. It is claimed that US
> citizens have eaten GM crops for years without any effect. Yet during
> this period many health problems have increased in the USA (including
> soya and maize allergies) and these have cost the US medical service
> dearly. There has been no attempt to find out whether these correlate
> in any way with GM food consumption. There has been no post-release
> monitoring of the population. No coroner or doctor is in a position to
> record any symptoms, even death, as resulting from GM foods because
> no-one knows what symptoms there could be. Whether or not the products
> are safe they are being rejected by consumers and food manufacturers.
> Surely the economic impact of this alone indicates the necessity of
> such research.
>
> Another claim is that such research is expensive - but surely the food
> manufacturers and importers and the major insurance companies can
> afford to pay for independent research that could open up an entire
> new market to them? After all, the examples of research that I have
> listed above would not appear to be especially expensive. And how much
> will it cost the economy if we make the wrong decisions in the absence
> of such research?
>
> Another claim (made verbally by GM industry lobbyists) is that such
> research would be 'Luddite' and 'anti-science' because it would slow
> or obstruct the introduction of food and crop biotechnology. Make of
> that claim what you wish! I for one am pro-science in the sense that I
> would like more rigorous safety research, not less.
>
> Yet another claim is that no-one is interested carrying out or
> publishing such research - yet it has been by far the most significant
> food controversy of the last decade. The UK government was certainly
> interested enough at one point to employ Dr Pusztai to carry out its
> official feeding studies. At that time the Government felt that such
> long-term whole food feeding studies were possible, necessary and
> affordable. Why does the government no longer think this?
>
> At the time Dr Pusztai was sacked, silenced and publicly disgraced, a
> key argument used by the government was that research was not valid
> until it was published and peer-reviewed (I refer to the time before
> Dr Pusztai had the research peer-reviewed and published in the Lancet,
> despite threats to the editor). Does this not strengthen the case for
> ensuring that the public and consumer groups, the food manufacturers
> and insurers have direct access to published and peer-reviewed feeding
> studies to provide reassurance? Yet the reality seems to be that the
> sacking of Dr Pusztai marks the final end of public GM safety research
> in the UK. The Government terminated the research programme, decided
> not to repeat or improve Dr Pusztai's experiments and has never since
> commissioned any such research.
>
> Not only has such government research been terminated but independent
> scientists wishing to carry out such research have been made to
> understand that their department or institute may lose funding if they
> are involved in 'irresponsible' research. Scientists have been denied
> access to the GM crop varieties and null cassette isotopes. Of the
> very few published papers on GM food safety that we have been able to
> identify, half were industry-funded and reported negative results, the
> other half were independent and all raised safety concerns. All the
> scientists raising concerns have subsequently been subjected to
> campaigns of intimidation or ridicule. The only two independent
> scientists on the government's GM Science Review panel, Dr Andrew
> Stirling and Professor Carlo Leifert, were likewise threatened as a
> result of raising their concerns.
>
> The two hundred or more organisations in the Five Year Freeze alliance
> have demanded a moratorium on GM foods until adequate research has
> been published to confirm its safety beyond reasonable doubt. My
> impression - and it is a widespread impression - is that the UK
> government and the biotech industry has instead decided that there
> will be a moratorium on the safety research until the products are on
> the shelves.
>
> We would welcome reassurance that the ACNFP and related bodies are not
> trying to hide the facts and that such research will be published -
> because it must now be clear to you that there is no hope of these
> products ever being sold in Europe in the absence of public access to
> this data.
>
> Yours sincerely, Robert Vint, Director
>
> (source: gmwatch)
> ------
>
> 10 research papers of which i (and almost all of the readers here) do
> not know how many are industry-sponsored in about 10 years of GM
> technology (a search on "IBT +fraud" gives a lot of insight) - makes 1
> every year.. for such an important technology the food supply of the
> world should depend on ??
>
> what do we get instead ?
> invaluable research on the effects of Jarlsberg cheese on blood serum
> levels, the effects of a new barley variety on cholesterol levels in
> pigs and the effect of Camembert cheese on intestinal microbiota in
> rats...certainly worth immediate publication in the "journal of most
> important research"
>
>
> and by arguing on safety you're on the wrong trip:
>
> there is little evidence that academic competence is critically
> important to adults in most walks of life."
> - Jencks, Christopher. "A Reappraisal of the Most Controversial
> Educational Document of Our Times,"
>
> when will we finally see an evident advantage by GM in agriculture for
> those, who should pay for it ? as a agricultural scientist you can
> easily convince me of the advantages of RR corn (or beets, when young
> i howed 100s of acres by hand while even enemployed people unwilling
> to get hired), being also a consumer the advantages are not visible,
> and therefore even less discussable.
>
>
> klaus
>
There are sure a lot more cases of real harm and real risk in
organic foods than you can find on GM foods.
Gordon Couger
Stillwater, OK
www.TakeThisOUTcouger.com/gcouger
|
|
| | From: | Klaus Wiegand | | Subject: | Re: Peer Reviewed Publications on the Safety of GM Foods | | Date: | Wed, 22 Dec 2004 20:54:51 GMT |
|
|
| On Sun, 19 Dec 2004 11:47:31 -0600, Gordon Couger
wrote:
>>
>>>Peer Reviewed Publications on the Safety of GM Foods
>>>
>There are sure a lot more cases of real harm and real risk in
>organic foods than you can find on GM foods.
such as ??
(already warming up my cd-roms with SCIENTIFIC databases and keeping
these with drivel as for example from paid lobbyists like avery and
the hudson institute or from proven liers like stossel on e. coli deep
back in the rack, where they belong. fyi: our microbio department does
official coli-tests on feed and food for more than 50 years). or
those u.o. guelph researchers who were contracted to do the work and
stressed "that the research was done with a very small sample and was
not peer-reviewed." why then publish at all?. such studies are
all-to-well well-known: "50% of the test animals showed an increase in
blood platelets (though not significant at the 90% level), from the
other 50% the drawing of blood samples could not be done for technical
reasons". meaning: the other sprague rat managed to escape from the
lab just in time...
the only valid argument i see is copper (and overall hygienic
conditions. that this does not show in differences in enterobacteria
between the 2 systems and industrial production to be no more hygienic
has been shown since sinclairs "the djungle". conditions have improved
since then ?? yeah - 90% of all chickens from today's slaughterhouses
are contaminated with coliforms due to the waterbaths and the only
reason this does not show in vomiting guests is, that they are sold
frozen and noone likes to eat them raw.
but what a surprise, when i looked at the composition of the most
modern pesticides for seed treatment. what did i find ? one third of
the active ingredients is - copper (as choride). makes me wonder,
which of the ingredients is the one with the best effeciency on
fungi...... agreed, the RELATIVE amounts are minimal compared to
spraying the whole plant (and more than half not reaching the plant,
but going on the soil surface).
maybe these things above are not what you intend to say. from the
content of your mail ("more cases ... in organic foods than .. on GM
foods") one might draw the logical conclusion: you want to explain
differences between GM food and ORGANIC food. you have an eager
listener !!
(answer might be delayed, i'm going on a short holiday to switzerland,
where they have these marvellous raw milk cheeses from small cottage
farms and - no casualities)
some peaceful and lucky holydays to you...
klaus
|
|
| | From: | Gordon Couger | | Subject: | Re: Peer Reviewed Publications on the Safety of GM Foods | | Date: | Tue, 04 Jan 2005 02:51:34 -0600 |
|
|
| Klaus Wiegand wrote:
> On Sun, 19 Dec 2004 11:47:31 -0600, Gordon Couger
> wrote:
>
>
>>>>Peer Reviewed Publications on the Safety of GM Foods
>>>>
>
>
>>There are sure a lot more cases of real harm and real risk in
>>organic foods than you can find on GM foods.
>
>
> such as ??
>
> (already warming up my cd-roms with SCIENTIFIC databases and keeping
> these with drivel as for example from paid lobbyists like avery and
> the hudson institute or from proven liers like stossel on e. coli deep
> back in the rack, where they belong. fyi: our microbio department does
> official coli-tests on feed and food for more than 50 years). or
> those u.o. guelph researchers who were contracted to do the work and
> stressed "that the research was done with a very small sample and was
> not peer-reviewed." why then publish at all?. such studies are
> all-to-well well-known: "50% of the test animals showed an increase in
> blood platelets (though not significant at the 90% level), from the
> other 50% the drawing of blood samples could not be done for technical
> reasons". meaning: the other sprague rat managed to escape from the
> lab just in time...
>
> the only valid argument i see is copper (and overall hygienic
> conditions. that this does not show in differences in enterobacteria
> between the 2 systems and industrial production to be no more hygienic
> has been shown since sinclairs "the djungle". conditions have improved
> since then ?? yeah - 90% of all chickens from today's slaughterhouses
> are contaminated with coliforms due to the waterbaths and the only
> reason this does not show in vomiting guests is, that they are sold
> frozen and noone likes to eat them raw.
>
> but what a surprise, when i looked at the composition of the most
> modern pesticides for seed treatment. what did i find ? one third of
> the active ingredients is - copper (as choride). makes me wonder,
> which of the ingredients is the one with the best effeciency on
> fungi...... agreed, the RELATIVE amounts are minimal compared to
> spraying the whole plant (and more than half not reaching the plant,
> but going on the soil surface).
>
> maybe these things above are not what you intend to say. from the
> content of your mail ("more cases ... in organic foods than .. on GM
> foods") one might draw the logical conclusion: you want to explain
> differences between GM food and ORGANIC food. you have an eager
> listener !!
>
> (answer might be delayed, i'm going on a short holiday to switzerland,
> where they have these marvellous raw milk cheeses from small cottage
> farms and - no casualities)
>
>
> some peaceful and lucky holydays to you...
>
>
> klaus
>
Goggle 'killer zucchini "new Zealand"'
http://www.torontofreepress.com/2004/morano061604.htm
http://orgprints.org/434/ Organic publication
http://www.cgfi.org/materials/articles/2000/feb_22_00.htm the
part from AMA is hard to deny.
If you look there are many more with sound scientific review not
the hand waving that get done on organic papers by parties with
vested interests.
If you really want to try it get some organic corn that has been
stored a year and have assayed for fungal toxins beside some BT
corn stored the same.
Gordon Couger
Stillwater, OK
www.TakeThisOUTcouger.com/gcouger
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| | From: | Klaus Wiegand | | Subject: | Re: Peer Reviewed Publications on the Safety of GM Foods | | Date: | Fri, 07 Jan 2005 19:31:08 GMT |
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| On Tue, 04 Jan 2005 02:51:34 -0600, Gordon Couger
wrote:
>>>There are sure a lot more cases of real harm and real risk in
>>>organic foods than you can find on GM foods.
>>
>>
>> such as ??
>Goggle 'killer zucchini "new Zealand"'
rolleston ? baah. forget it. a MUST-BE promoter for GM tech. forget
about him and neutrality. info on Rolleston:
http://www.gmwatch.org/profile1.asp?PrId=77
paid by the usual suspects. and by usual suspects i again need to
point my finger to monsanto:
news from 07.01.05:
A former senior manager at Monsanto directed an Indonesian consulting
firm to give a $50,000 bribe to a high-level official in Indonesia's
environment ministry in 2002. Monsanto also has admitted to paying
bribes to a number of other high-ranking officials between 1997 and
2002.
from their code of ethics:
"Accordingly, no payments, gifts, services, or any other item of value
may be offered or given to any government official, anywhere in the
world, if that payment, gift, service, or item is intended to or could
even have the appearance of being intended to influence the actions of
a government official to win or retain business for Monsanto
Monsanto management is expected to set the example of proper business
conduct."
while i have every respect for the normal company employees and
believe them to be as honest, hard working and respectful as thse from
any other company, the bad apples seems to sit in management. no minor
employee has the authority to pay out 1.5 mio $ for bribes.
at least the company regretted that people working on behalf of them
engaged in such behavior. that would have sounded more honest, if this
were the only case.
the rest of the article: no clear correlation, but mostly speculation
about the most likely cause: "a significant proportion were organic
growers".
"The reviewing scientists are very clear that the most likely cause "
"are VERY clear, that the most LIKELY cause... ? this is what kind of
scientific conclusions ?? i even doubt that this was their statement,
but more the one from rolleston.
>http://www.torontofreepress.com/2004/morano061604.htm
excerpts:
In addition, the study found the food-borne disease pathogen
salmonella only on the organic produce samples.
----
The principle investigator of the University of Minnesota study,
Francisco Diez-Gonzalez, told CNSNews.com that "organic agriculture
was more susceptible to carry fecal indicators."
---
"I don't think we need to be more concerned about organic vegetables.
Based on the epidemiological evidence, we can say that both organic
and conventional vegetables would pose the same [food borne pathogen]
risk for consumers"
---
now would you please tell me, what this man tries to tell me ????
"only on organic foods", "the same risk for consumers"
yes, but no !?!?
your explanation please
>http://orgprints.org/434/ Organic publication
where in this article do i find a COMPARISON between the two systems ?
>http://www.cgfi.org/materials/articles/2000/feb_22_00.htm the
>part from AMA is hard to deny.
i expressively asked you not to use any article from avery. this man
has definitely LIED once. "fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice,
shame on me" or, if you prefer "once bitten, twice shy" still
applies!! from that moment on every interest group relying on claims
by avery has a problem with credibility. and the hudson institute
certainly is a think tank as dependant on sponsoring and repaying the
payers of the piper as can be. this man is burned, a lonely fighter
eager to save his income, scientifically not the least relevant.
>If you look there are many more with sound scientific review not
>the hand waving that get done on organic papers by parties with
>vested interests.
i get the impression, you are getting kind of evasive here.. i
certainly won't say that there don't exist such papers, but there are
as much papers with exactly the contrary conclusion.
http://www.iol.uni-bonn.de/pdf/Osiol.pdf
http://www.science.ulster.ac.uk/food/PDFs/Ann01IJFM.pdf
`It can be concluded that organic farming potentially
reduces the risk of E.coli infection'
from: Food and Agriculture Organisation, Food Safety & Quality as
Affected by Organic Farming, Report of the 22nd regional
conference for Europe, Portugal, 24-28 July 2000.
which means: the question is far from settled. and contraditive
research results on such an easy question tend to show bad science or
involvement of interests. but what about your claim of "a lot more
cases of real harm and real risk in organic foods than you can find
on GM foods." ??? you did not even mention it again!!
for a list of food outbreaks see:
http://search.cdc.gov/search97cgi/s97is.dll?action=FilterSearch&QueryZip=_
salmonella&Filter=MMWRFilt%2Ehts&ResultTemplate=mmwrmetanew%2Ehts&Collection=_
MMWRnew&SortField=Year&SortField=Month&SortField=Day&SortField=Page&SortField=_
Modified&SortOrder=Desc&SortOrder=Desc&SortOrder=Desc&SortOrder=Asc&SortOrder=
_Desc&ResultStart=1&ResultCount=10
for "salmonella" replace it with any pathogen the database offers.
there is little, if no evidence, that food poisoning is caused by any
special farming system. the last majority is caused by improper
handling in the system behind. for a farmer, who knows the basics of
both systems not very surprising, because manure application is used
by both farming systems and ABSOLUTELY more by conventional farmers,
because
a) organic farmers have restrictions on the relation animal units per
farm area (which conventional farmers don't have). the ugly result in
conventional farmings are CAFO's, who do not know, where to put their
manure and urine (unknown in organic farms). the worst example being
the netherlands.
b) they have clear rules, how to treat the manure
c) there are far fewer organic than conventional farmers. consequently
the absolute risk must be higher in conventional farming (although the
risk is quite low at all and exaggerated by interest groups and the
media. roughly 2% of all vegetables are contaminated with very low
levels of e. coli (certainly much less than can normally be found in a
human gut)
>If you really want to try it get some organic corn that has been
>stored a year and have assayed for fungal toxins beside some BT
>corn stored the same.
the rise in colony forming bacteria by storage is not a question of a
farming system , but of storage conditions (moisture equilibrum and
the initial amount of colony forming bacteria).
i asked the head of our microbiology department for some data and
invested those 5 min for using a statistical package. data from about
45.000 microbiologic analyses of corn feed (different formulations
from raw corn down to corn starch), of which about 1200 could be
identified as *declared* as "organic" (no proof for that declaration,
that's the weak point, just as there might be - nondeclared - organic
samples among the rest). correlation between the different farming
systems and 4 mycotoxins (i ran stats on A1, A2, DON, and
citreoviridin) resulted in r squares between 0,32 and 0,58. that's
certainly fast track stat, but with r2 around these values you better
throw a dice!!
interesting: a stat run on filtering sweet corn seems to confirm your
suspicion on first impression. this seems to need more research,
because i do not have enough data on that. but i know from practical
consulting, that organic farmers are not much interested in growing
sweet corn. they indeed have problems to fight fungal growth resulting
from the higher sugar contents and the resulting obligatory sap by
insect infection. over here in germany organic sweet corn simply does
not exists, so maybe a topic for a nice theoretical Ph.D thesis.
the problem certainly is more complicated than i can explain in an
usenet discussion. there are definite differences in the composition
of the microbiologic flora between organic and conventional farm
products. there is competition between different commensural germs
(known as antagonsism) and the organic food and feed is known to have
MORE germs as such - which is not the least an indication of a higher
risk, because these (mostly germs known as "yellow germs") are in
competition with human "risk" pathogens. so more of these (harmless)
yellow germs usually means less human pathogens and less toxin-forming
spores like certain aspergilli or fusariums. there is NO clear
indication between number of cfb and toxigenity for humans.
in my previous posting i forgot to mention another special health
problem for organic farms: rotenone. given the degradation rates for
rotenone i think this to be more a problem for the applicator than the
consumer. still a health problem almost restricted to organic farming.
klaus
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