Topic: Are GMO Foods Safe? What Are The Pros and Cons? - page 2. (Read 2729 times)

What problems are you talking about? What help will GMO do? If anything, GMOs will increase the problems that humans have created.
When will we learn to stop messing with nature?

GMOs will help with many problems we as humans have created. I think they are overall a good idea and the will do more help than harm

I misspoke earlier. I was using the wrong terminology. Terminator seeds seem to be banned by international convention. What I was thinking of and meant to say is most GMO seeds are HYBRIDS that will not produce the same results from saved seed if they are viable at all.

"When two dissimilar varieties are crossed, the result is a hybrid which will often be bigger, brighter, faster-growing or higher-yielding than either of its parents, which makes for a great selling point. But it’s a one-hit wonder. Subsequent generations don’t have the same vigour or uniformity, and the idea is that you don’t save seed from it, you just throw it away and buy some more. This is bad for the plants, bad for the garden and bad for you, but the seed companies make a packet out of it and gain increasing control of what we buy and grow."

http://daughterofthesoil.blogspot.com/2008/02/commercial-f1-hybrids.html

As far as the oilseed rape, apparently this isn't even a food crop, it is used mostly as a bio-fuel and as a soil restorer in crop rotation. Also as far as I can tell varieties which can be grown in winter are already available by nature. In conclusion I don't think any GMO varieties of oilseed rape qualify feeding the world any better than it already is.

Its not like you have a choice since the federal government banned the states from making mandatory GMO food labeling laws.

I would avoid eating it. Unfortunately since everything we eat has been modified at some point or another then I am afraid I will continue eating it with the rest of the world.

@wintercrops
I read about winter oilseed rape (wtf name in german it is called raps) which they try to modify to get high(er) immunity against pest and herbizide and more yields.

There sadly already exist an example of what you are talking about:
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0025736

Imho with more research this should be solved somewhen in the future.

@food for the world

I think the main problem is how the Patents work atleast i know that for Monsanto.
http://www.monsanto.com/newsviews/pages/why-does-monsanto-sue-farmers-who-save-seeds.aspx

Here is their official statement.
It is just about money. They could give it to the 3rd world farmers for free if they wanted too.

*edit
I checked terminator seeds, good lord they seem not to be commercial available yet?
If these genes go rampage in the wild then we really will destroy our world.

should show the people this here, funny how the majority of ppl dont even think about it.

http://medical-diagonosis.wonderhowto.com/how-to/health-alert-youre-taking-crap-wrong-is-you-poop-properly-0139696/

Large Pig Study Reveals Significant Inflammatory Response to Genetically Engineered Foods

...
"The two main things he was seeing was an increase in intestinal problems in pigs fed GM feed, particularly an increase in stomach inflammation. He was also seeing things such as a thinning of intestinal walls, and hemorrhagic bowel disease, where a pig can... bleed out from its bowel within 15 or so minutes.


The other thing he was seeing was a reduced ability to conceive in the sows (female pigs) and higher rates of miscarriage in female pigs fed GM crops. [In] communities in the United States that still use boars to inseminate their sows... he was also seeing a reduction in the number of piglets born."
...

I can't say for sure GMOs are the cause but, the smell from the anti-inflammatory cream the doctors make everybody rub into their assholes these days is really grossing me out. I can smell it a block away sometimes.  

As far as I know there are no factual basis for these claims. Care to support these arguments with evidence?
I have never heard of these supposed GMO winter crops, but I know for a fact that the supposedly immune BT products lead directly to resistance to pesticides and create pests that are almost completely uncontrollable even by standard methods using insecticide, so this is far from a fact.

As far as GMOs being required in order to meet food demand, this is also another talking point they like to claim that has no basis in reality. I will also give you two reasons why this is patently false. Number one, GMO seeds are EXPENSIVE, more expensive than natural seeds, meaning the worlds poor can't afford them to begin with.

Number 2, most of their GMO seeds are what are known as "Terminator" seeds, where they are completely sterile and can not be used to replant because they are designed so that farmers have to buy seed stock from them EVERY YEAR. This is again another factor that increases dependance on Monsanto and raises the cost of growing food.

Struggling with the pollution of the Spokane River, a town in the state of Washington is taking agrochemical giant Monsanto to court for selling chemicals that endanger human health and the environment, despite it allegedly having known of the hazard for decades.

The lawsuit, filed in a US District Court in Spokane, Washington, holds Monsanto accountable for pollutants flowing into the 111 miles (179 km) long Spokane River that stretches from northern Idaho to eastern Washington.

“Spokane filed a lawsuit to hold Monsanto Company responsible for PCB contamination that finds its way into the City’s stormwater that flows into the Spokane River,” Environmental Law Firms Baron & Budd and Gomez Trial Attorneys, representing Spokane said in a press release.

The city seeks “compensatory damages,” lawyer’s fees, interest and any other relief the court deems appropriate. The suit doesn’t specify the actual sum of damages being sought from the Iowa-based company.

Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) chemical compounds were developed and made by Monsanto from the 1930s until 1979, when Congress banned them over danger they pose to humans and the environment.

Over the decades, PCBs were used in a number of Monsanto’s products that were incorporated into electrical equipment, paints, caulks, and other building materials.

“Monsanto knew then that PCBs were toxic and could not be contained as they readily escaped into the environment finding their way into bays, oceans, lakes, rivers, streams, soil, and air,” the legal team says.

Despite allegedly knowing the risk posed, Monsanto increased the production of PCBs and concealed this information to make profit, the law firm says. Because of such ill practice PCBs became a common environmental contaminant that affected all forms of life and are capable of wiping out entire fish habitats. In humans, PCB exposure is associated with a number of sicknesses, with cancer posing the worst threat.

The city of Spokane will now spend $300 million to keep PCBs from entering the river in coming years, Marlene Feist, the city’s utilities spokeswoman, told The Spokesman-Review. She said the suit is “long-term litigation.”

Feist noted that the Spokane River has elevated levels of PCBs, that has also been found in fish and wildlife. The city is currently trying to meet a 2017 federal deadline to stop pollution from entering the river.

In order to proceed with the clean-up, the Washington State Department of Ecology already began reducing PCBs at their sources in the watershed, and adding more levels of treatment at its water treatment plant.

“No company should be allowed to contaminate the environment and rely upon taxpayers to clean up the mess,” Attorney Scott Summy, a shareholder at Baron & Budd, P.C., one of two firms representing Spokane in the lawsuit said. “Monsanto, one of the most sophisticated chemical companies in the world, knew decades ago that PCBs were a significant contamination threat. And yet the company was concerned more with continuing profits than with protecting the public.”

“The City will incur significant costs to remove PCBs from stormwater and wastewater effluent flowing into the Spokane River, costs that should not be borne by the City or by its taxpayers but by the company that knew its product would cause this contamination,” Summy’s co-counsel, Attorney John Fiske, of Gomez Trial Attorneys, agreed.

READ MORE: San Diego sues Monsanto for bay pollution & persistent contamination

Monsanto replied in a statement, saying that they are reviewing the lawsuit and its allegations.

“Monsanto is not responsible for the costs alleged in this matter,” Charla Lord, a spokeswoman with the company told The Spokesman-Review.

“PCBs sold at the time were a lawful and useful product that was then incorporated by third parties into other useful products,” Lord said. “If improper disposal or other improper uses created the necessity for clean-up costs, then these other third parties would bear responsibility for these costs.”

In the past PCB pollution cases had been opened against Monsanto in San Diego and San Jose, California, and Westport, Massachusetts

Indeed. The truth is gmos are way superior in effiency.
Gm crops for example can grow during winter and are immune against pests and illnesses.

The problem is only that we dont know for sure if it is healthy or not.

Most scientist also say there is no way to not use gmo for the future, because we just need to produce more food for the increasing world population.

Corps will not consider anything you guys are saying (even though im 100% agreeing), why? because it will cut profits. Simple, 1-2-3

Hmm nope not for me thanks, I'll pass    I saw LA Beast eat a 'Cheeseburger in a Can', I nearly puked my brains out and that wasn't even genetically modified. I calculate GMO foods to be roughly 10.2 billion times as gross so no I don't even wanna know what the pros are