Why gmos arent bad

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What are GMOs? Advantages of GMO foods. Safety and concerns. How to identify GMO foods. The bottom line. Read this next. Medically reviewed by Natalie Olsen, R. Not the stomach- but the gut.. You might want to talk with specialists in the area of colorectal surgery. There is no margin, no years of gut problems such as colitis or even Chrones- just a sudden need to remove a colon that looks like raw hamburger. In fact, they have find no other reason thus far.

My son went from to six weeks later. He had 4 surgeries and nearly died twice and his heart stopped once on the table- these events were due to the condition he was in. His hair still has not grown back 3 years later and at this point he is 21 years old.

Not a very picture, is it? It appears the information you found was for most organs but certainly not all. I would love to read it and maybe even write a follow up to this article about it. Including reducing pesticides when compared to non-GMO conventional agriculture, reducing tilling, and hopefully in the future making crops more resistant to environmental disaster and less destructive to the planet.

Agribusinesses who unsustainably farm, and overuse pesticides have lead to the requirement for GMO crops and they have largely contributed to environmental damage. If natural alternatives were promoted, farms were treated like organisms and not businesses, and sustainable methods were priority this discussion would not be necessary. I like my food from the earth, with its DNA pure, the way it was intended to be. First, farming itself can be destructive to the plant! Tilling both organic and conventional!

They have their environmental flaws, like the creation of super weeds see our article on glyphosphate resistant crops in this issue. The population is growing, climate change is happening, and science—specifically genetic engineering—can help us grow food more sustainably in light of these things. Therefore helping to both feed more people AND have less environmental impact!

This kind of thing speaks to the potential of genetic engineering and the kind of progress that people are stopping by outright rejecting all GMO technology. They are resistant to pesticide. A study of these two types of crops did find that these crops allowed for a Also, glypohsophate, which is used on GR crops is toxic, but less toxic than other pesticides used on conventional crops see our article on pesticides.

This article is completely biased. There have been no long term studies regarding this issue so how can you claim that GMOs are safe off a three month trial done on rats? Children in the United States are getting sicker and sicker with an increase in allergies, gluten intolerance, intestinal inflammation, and more. I think it is such a shame that Harvard is teaching students to discredit any research that would result in a loss of profits for said companies involved in the making and distribution of GMOs.

These companies only care about their profits and do not care about the health of all human beings. Why is it that so many presidents eat organic? Why is it that so many have their own garden full of fresh vegetables and fruit?

If she eats organic, why would she not put organic food in schools? I think it is sickening that people get paid to lie about what is going on in the world. You all should be ashamed of yourselves. One day you all will have to answer to God for your part in the destruction of the human race. It is not true that there have been no long-term studies of GMOs. See here for a review of studies up to 2 years i. Actually toxic herbicide and pesticide use has increased fifteenfold since the prevalence of GMOs due to the herbicide and pesticide resistant genes.

Please cite your source! It is true that the use of glyphosate has increased, but there are many types of pesticides, many of which are far more toxic than glyphosate, and if you look at OVERALL pesticide use, it has decreased, according to the sources I have read. Your son has my sympathy. Let me use an analogy. Asbestos causes mesothelioma, a form of lung cancer.

Most people need to inhale a lot of asbestos to get this cancer but a small percentage only need a relatively small exposure to become sick. Your son could be similarly part of a unique minority unfortunately predisposed to become sick.

Animal models of human disease rarely discover these groups of people in society. We only know of mesothelioma because so many actual people got cancer working with asbestos. Although, it was really only a small percentage of thousands, maybe millions, working with asbestos.

I sell pesticides to farmers for a living. I have trouble seeing how that translates into a 15 fold increase. You are not a doctor. And if you do have a degree in biology, you should know that correlation does not equate to causation. A variety of factors are at play here! You need a peer-reviewed experiment to prove anything in the sciences.

The only studies showing harm are pay-for-play journals that are debunked as soon as journalists sensationalize the junk findings. You were way too kind in your reply to this obvious pile of horse manure organic of course. Can anyone explain how a human body could lose 65 pounds in 6 weeks as this person claimed? While it has been suggested to me that I could lose ten pounds of ugly fat instantly by cutting my head off, all the websites claiming 20 pound losses in an hour or 24 hours or 40 pounds in two days are blatant scams.

Colon removal would only involve a few pounds unless it has that twelve pounds of undigested meat that inhabits the fantasies of organic blog trolls.

My BS detector pegged Red Line on this one. My question to this woman is why are you spending your time spreading malicious nonsense on the Internet. On the other hand, thank you for your reasoned approach. As a recovering extreme organic gardener I wish I had access to this kind of info many decades ago when I went off the rails. That said, practicing organic is good for you and the environment in many ways. Did you ever get a second opinion? Id raise my eyebrows at any doctor who would outright blame GMOs for such an extreme illness.

How does he know your son does not have a genetic disorder that caused him to need those surgeries? Obviously your family history and genetic maps are NONE of my business, but its good for you to know.

Organs that burst are lumens with one opening, such as an appendix or uterus. Its always good to get second opinions, especially when your doctor jumps to such a wild conclusion with no other cases to back it up. After reading what you wrote, i think he confused you or you did not understand what he was saying. I hope your son finds health again soon, from the bottom of my heart.

If i were you id be scrutinizing that doc! The medical condition you describe has no diagnosis I could find or that I know of. Perhaps you are talking about the appendix? Many people in your situation, with no diagnosis for what has occurred, grasp at any possible cause and often find one that is as mysterious as the original illness. Rarely if ever is that speculation the cause.

Are dogs also toxic for the environment? How about cows? How about pigs? How about all of the food that you eat on a daily basis? This was such a heartbreaking testament. I myself have a child who is suffering with a tic disorder which no one can really help him with but a chiropractor trained in Nutrition Response Testing and applied Kinesiology determined that his Thyroid as well as his small intestines are burdened by GMO toxicity. Could it be our diet? Thanks for sharing. Most likely they had GMOs recently and that is all the proof they had for it so I think it was an idea without much proof.

Kayla, I very much agree with you. Because if scientists and researchers where actually able to spend their time and funds creating an all natural fertiliser and herbicide then we might actually see some success and less of an impact on the soils, water ways and livestock in surrounding areas.

This is an extremely messed up mindset and society, and I can most defiantly say that GMOs really do have a considerable effect as my entire family including myself have experienced this mainly in the form of allergies. Good point! Also see how bad cheap oils in almost everything, even healthfood wreck havock. Part 1 is the Native Cultures research and common sense not lab rat tests comes into play here.

Part 2 on Cholesterol myths, bad soy plus!! Long but worth listening to! One doctor said lectins in tomatoes, wheat, eggplant and beans cause leaky gut! I would comment that some of the studies sourced for this article are flawed.

Furthermore, studies of anything less at least half the life span of the test animal are not useful in predicting long term affects and toxic accumulation — which is what we really care about since people are not slaughtered for food at a few years into their lifespan.

The argument that these studies do prove its safe rely on the sort of logic that the tobacco industry has used for years to try to hid that cigarettes deliver carcinogens to the consumer and they may not immediately kill you, but they are not good for you either. Thanks for your comment—you make some interesting points!

These studies are done by independent academic groups without funding or conflict of interest from biotech groups, making the conclusions different from that of the tobacco industry with regards to cigarettes. Since that particular study is specifically testing potatoes, not corn or other GM products, this actually seems pretty reasonable to me.

This would be like a human with a calorie diet eating about 1 GM potato per day which I would guess is actually more GM potato than the average human eats, given both the prevalence of potato in our diets and the prevalence of GM potatoes on the market.

Another study cited here 7 actually feeds rats , times the amount of GM vegetable that would be expected to be in human diets, and they still found no health effects by several measures. Well, I prefer to grow my own non-GMO, non- bioengineered produce myself. Drink reverse osmosis, alkaline water and cook or reheat food from a stove top, rather than a microwave.

Seems to do a body good. One aspect was that their control potato was not equivalent in nutritional value to their GMO potato, meaning a difference in health could just as likely be due to malnutrition.

Nothing in biology is as simple as you pretend to be and there are many other factors that influence the number and quality of toxicity studies on GMOs. This is a million dollar question and you would solve all the issues for the scientific community! In addition, most of all new GM plants have multiple trait and there is almost no studies that test multiple Bt toxins and multiple herbicides together.

This is recognized by EFSA and the scientific community as a knowledge gap. Hi Sarah! Thanks for reading! Yes—this can lead to the use of more pesticides on these crops, but the health effects of that on the consumer are unclear. Also, plenty if not all of the studies cited here are funded by government agencies in multiple countries, as is most basic scientific research, so there should be no conflict of interest. It furthermore seems unlikely given the current data that any of the GM crops we eat now are dangerous to our health.

Finally, addressing your first paragraph, many of us at SITN are biologists, and we are aware the biology is complicated! We also believe in trusting data. I am interested in seeing all sides of this issue—if you know of other studies that show that GMOs are dangerous to our health, please let me know! I am always willing to change my mind with new evidence. How could someone writing articles for Harvard have such linear thinking to the point of such naivety? Actually this is patently untrue.

Scientific method, the basis of all science, is about testing ideas, hypotheses and theories against new data, ideas and inputs. Sometimes science will be validated, sometimes it will be improved by new thinking, new methodology, new instrumentation for testing, or even whole new theorems. The thing is, a lot of the real studies we have on health issues change and develop over more than 20 years and it often takes a few decades to come to a conclusion that may or may not change in the next few.

I also want to say that many health issues are actually due to the bad health choices of people in all aspects of their lives. There are studies for example that show that someone who overindulges in food, even for a few years may have a good life, but their descendants then have a higher chance of heart problems. We can see evidence of this in any study of epigenetics. We do know their effects, and we know that they do nothing. Though, I do agree that science changes constantly, the whole GMO toxicity thing has been disproved for a long time.

For more information, research the appeal to authority logical fallacy. Yes I think you missed that they did cover them although all of the ANTI-GMO things were conspiracy theories, not facts people did the studies all of them were lies. Good job! This article makes me very happy. I think this should be covered more thoroughly in the media. Yas I agree I think this will help everyone learn about GMOs are learn they are not as bad as they sound. I think it is premature to make blanket statements about the safety of GMOs based on the research to date.

Some potential holes in the analysis of prior research. Mice studies are not the equivalent of a double-bind long term human study. Given the infinite permutations of genes that can be combined in the lab it will be only a matter of time that a particular combination will have emergent properties that will be devastating consequences that were not foreseen. With anything, as time goes on business and scientists become lax over time.

Mishaps in the Nuclear power industry are a prime example of this. Lack of studies on population outliers. Sure many products may be safe for the general population but can have very severe consequences for certain segments of the population. Have there been studies looking at particular GMO products against all types of test subjects?

Some variables would be pregnant, immune comprised, infant, etc. The reason I bring these issues up is that I have two sons. One with a fructose intolerance issue and another with severe allergic GI issues. This correlation alone of course does not prove causality but where there is smoke, science must take the time to identify the source of the fire.

That sounds like: 1. You mentioned something which cannot be done should be done in order to garner proof. Just because bad things can result from something, does not mean that thing is inherently harmful to you. Nearly everything you do with a positive outcome, has a negative consequence. Sometimes there is no fire. Sometimes there is just more understanding.

Sometimes, we get better at catching irregularities as time passes. A long-term human study was done. They stated very similar results, no change, though an increase in profits.

The plant is resistant to pesticides because it eats the pesticides. Then you come along and ingest it. Your stomach dissolves it and now your intestine gets ready to absorb the nutrients. Twenty-seven sources were identified from Thank You!!!! Hi, great article! DNA and the interplay of the various genes is phenomenally complex.

Without even making any alterations in a genome there are many things we do not fully understand about how it all works- what synergies exist, what sequences are key for subsequent sequences to operate successfully, etc. Until I feel confident that we understand more about the complexities of the existing genomes WHEN they are operating within living ecosystems, I do not feel comfortable throwing a wrench into the works.

It has taken millions of years for evolution to fine tune these systems- both ours and the plants we are dependent on for food- and there are millions of variables affecting both our internal and external environments. Hello Jean, Thank you for adding to this discussion. I want to be transparent with you about why I only approved some of your comments.

As this discussion has been going on for several years, I have slowly adopted some guidelines about what comments are actually helpful in the debate. I am more than happy to approve comments that support a different point of view on GMOs such as the video you posted above! However, we are a non-profit graduate student organization.

We do not get any money or guidance from Monsanto or any other company. I have explained this in the comments section of our GMO articles many times, and yet people still question our motives. In an effort to keep the discussion on the science, I have decided not to approve any accusatory comments.

Monsanto is a bad company although saying GMOs because of Monsanto is like saying science is bad because of a scientist. Too bad this article is complete bullshit. Saying GMOs are completely safe is ridiculous. Who paid for your research Monsanto? Did you get any kickbacks? There is so much evidence saying GMOs are toxic. Look what it is doing to the bee population. Just because someone from Harvard has done a study we should take that as fact?

We are merely interested in providing science articles that are based in primary sources which is what we are doing here. The first one actually shows that Bt crop fields have more nontarget insects than nontransgenic fields. Also, may I ask if you have gathered any information regarding the disadvantages of GM plants?

You should be asking all these questions if you were a true scientist. The scientific community cannot be fully trusted, and this is the sad fact. Your own publication here just enforces this fact imho. Personally, I trust the scientific community and trust that if someone is working with Monsanto or other large agro corporation, they will disclose it as is journal policy in all peer reviewed publications.

And the majority of studies support that GM crops are not harmful to our health. Maybe Monsanto is secretly funding the majority of these studies in a huge, HUGE cover-up including probably hundreds of labs and tens to hundreds of journals, and all of the anti-GMO activists have just not been able to find any proof of it, but I doubt it. Conspiracy theory thinking hooks the brain because it feels like critical thinking.

The Dunning Kruger effect shows in these comments. I applaud whoever has been contributing to the SITNFlash account over the last five years for having the patience to respond to so many conspiratorial comments. It is undoubtedly incredibly frustrating. Any science connected to capitalist motivations is suspect. We know pollution is really really bad for us—deadly—and yet it is not banned—it is promoted and facilitated by the same governemtn and institutions applaudinng GMOs. Yet, science shows us that industrial pollution is bad, m-kay, and there is no serious law or movement to ban or regulate pollution—government policy is basically to facilitate industry, like GMOs and Big Pharma—even though it is destructive and environmentalists are labelled terrorists and assaulted by police thugs and para military troops endorsed by the government.

Not human rights. You see—you are bias and uncritical. You cite flawed science and promote unethical policy against our civil an human rights. You might not be bad people, but you serve bad people and bad policy. What would science look like UN-corrupted by capitalist interests? Think about it. How deep do the capitalist tentacles go? You are a product of capitalist indoctrination and conditioning.

Thank you for reading our article. In the spirit of full transparency, I am replying to tell you that I have not approved some of your comments because they are not contributing productively to the conversation due to repeated personal attacks at other commenters, the author of the article, or this site in general.

If you would like to re-write your comments without these personal attacks, I would be happy to approve them. I understand that your point of view is that all studies are indirectly funded by Monsanto and are therefore unable to be trusted. I would be very interested to ready why you think this is flawed science that is cited here or any reliable sources about funding of the studies cited. Hey, I wish that were true Randall. I am actually doing an academic research paper on the positives and negatives of GMOs and let me assure you that there is not many studies proving GMOs are toxic, or harmful for that matter.

Actually I believe that most of the negatives are just fears that people have concerning the potential risks of GMOs, however, those are just potential risks and have not been proved or agreed upon by a scientific body. Only big capitalist institutions have the funds to research. So I am not surprised it is hard to find independent studies. It is not too early to consider that the amber waves of grain in the Midwest might also be at risk of drought or conversely that the risk of crop-harming downpours — another manifestation of climate change — will also negatively affect grain yields.

Figure 3. Groundwater withdrawal rates in It takes roughly 10, years to recharge water Source: National Atlas via Wikipedia. In light of these very sobering conditions, it is clear that agricultural technology should be focusing on increasing the resiliency of our food crops, rather than fine-tuning them to maximize yield in a narrow ecological sweet spot.

When I was researching this article, I looked for examples of companies working on developing GMO strains that were drought-resistant or would otherwise allow crops to be grown in soils with less nitrogen i. I found Monsanto had marketed a drought-resistant corn product, but that this has not had great commercial uptake and its efficacy was questioned by a scientific study.

Arcadia has formed a joint venture with an Argentinian bioengineering firm to produce a drought-resistant soybean seed. NOTE: After writing this article, I was contacted by a representative from Arcadia BioSciences with more information about the company's drought-resistant soybean product. This information convinced me that the conclusion I made above -- tying present market cap to the success of Arcadia's genetically engineered soybean seed -- may be overly hasty. In fact, Arcadia has not yet received regulatory approval for the product, so has not been able to sell drought-tolerant soybeans in Argentina.

In Canada nasal swabs of people living inside and outside zones where Bt was being applied found the bacteria in 17 percent of samples taken before crops were sprayed, as well as 36 percent to 47 percent of samples taken afterward. Nobody monitors how much Bt is applied worldwide. Bt has been said to account for 57 percent to 90 percent of that market. In , Bt was reportedly applied in the U. Since then, biopesticide sales have risen substantially. In Europe the annual growth rate since has been nearly 17 percent.

Every market analysis predicts that biopesticides will grow at a much faster rate than the overall insecticide market, in part because governments are promoting them. The Journal projects that by , 10 percent of global pesticide sales will be Bt and other biological formulas. Suppose you live in Germany.

It requires labels, discourages GMO cultivation, and has prohibited even some crops approved by the European Union. But U. That works out to more than pounds per acre per year. By comparison, no Bt corn variety produces more than 4 pounds of toxin per acre.

Monsanto is one step ahead of you. Anti-GMO zealots refuse to face the truth about Bt. The study is a mess. They asked each company whether its product included any ingredients sprayed with biopesticides. One sent us weasel words and repeated them when we pressed for a clearer answer. Another told us it adhered to legal limits. It only pretends to inform you.

Right now, across the world, a quarter of a billion preschool-age children are suffering from vitamin A deficiency. Every year, , to , of these kids go blind. Within a year, half of the blinded children will die. Much of the affliction is in Southeast Asia, where people rely on rice for their nutrition. Twenty-five years ago, a team of scientists, led by Ingo Potrykus of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, set out to solve this problem. Their plan was to engineer a new kind of rice that would make beta carotene.

The idea sounded crazy. But to Potrykus it made more sense than what some governments were already doing: giving each person two high-dose vitamin A pills a year.

That way, people could grow the nutrient and eat it every day, instead of relying on occasional handouts. This was a sustainable solution. It would use biotechnology to prevent suffering, disability, and death.

In , Potrykus and his colleagues achieved their first breakthrough. Anti-GMO groups were confounded. This humanitarian project undermined their usual objections to genetic engineering. The better approach, according to biotechnology critics, was to help people cultivate home gardens full of beans, pumpkins, and other crops rich in Vitamin A. Greenpeace was right about Golden Rice. But neither did the alternatives.

Gordon Conway, the president of the Rockefeller Foundation, which was funding the project, explained some of the difficulties in a letter to Greenpeace :. Conway echoed the skepticism of UNICEF nutritionists, who doubted that plants native to the afflicted countries could deliver enough digestible beta carotene.

To Potrykus, the notion of home gardens for everyone— Let them eat carrot cake —reeked of Western ignorance. Potrykus and Conway wanted to try everything to alleviate vitamin A deficiency: diversification, fortification, supplementation, and Golden Rice. But the anti-GMO groups refused.

They doubled down on their double standards. They portrayed Golden Rice as a financial scheme , but then—after Potrykus made clear that it would be given to poor farmers for free —objected that free distribution would lead to genetic contamination of local crops. Some anti-GMO groups said the rice should be abandoned because it was tied up in 70 patents.

While critics tried to block the project, Potrykus and his colleagues worked to improve the rice. By they had developed plants with eight times as much beta carotene as the original version.

In they unveiled a line that had 20 times as much beta carotene as the original. GMO critics could no longer dismiss Golden Rice as inadequate. So they reversed course. Now that the rice produced plenty of beta carotene, anti-GMO activists claimed that beta carotene and vitamin A were dangerous.

To support the new alarmism, David Schubert, an anti-GMO activist and neurobiologist at the Salk Institute, drafted a paper on the ostensible perils of boosting vitamin A. In he got it published in the Journal of Medicinal Food. In the article he noted that beta carotene and dozens of related compounds, known as carotenoids, could produce other compounds, called retinoids, which included vitamin A.

Schubert systematically distorted the evidence. To suggest that Golden Rice might be toxic, he cited a study that had been reported in the New England Journal of Medicine in He also failed to quote the rest of the paper, which emphasized that in general, beta carotene was actually associated with a lower risk of lung cancer. Schubert gave opponents of Golden Rice what they needed: the illusion of scientific support.

Every anti-GMO lobby cited his paper. But the new position, like the old one, relied on double standards. To begin with, every green plant produces carotenoids. For years, anti-GMO groups had argued that instead of eating Golden Rice, people should grow other plants rich in beta carotene. They had also encouraged the use of selective breeding to increase carotenoid levels. They also advocated the mass administration of vitamin A through high-dose capsules and chemical manipulation of the food supply.

By their own alarmist standards—which, fortunately, were unwarranted—this would have been reckless. The human body derives from beta carotene sources, such as Golden Rice, only as much vitamin A as it needs. In the context of GMOs, Greenpeace claimed to stand for freedom. In the Philippines, where Greenpeace was fighting to block field trials of Golden Rice, its hypocrisy was egregious.

The government administered capsules to preschoolers twice a year, and to some pregnant women for 28 consecutive days. If Greenpeace seriously believed that retinoids caused birth defects and should be a matter of personal choice, it would never have endorsed these programs. Despite this, the anti-GMO lobby went ballistic when scientists fed Golden Rice to 24 children during clinical trials in China.

The trials, conducted in , were designed to measure how much vitamin A the rice could generate in people who suffered from vitamin A deficiency. One group of kids was given Golden Rice, a second group was given beta carotene capsules, and a third was given spinach. In a separate study, they found that an adult-sized serving could do the same for adults. Golden Rice was as good as capsules, and better than spinach, at delivering vitamin A.

When Greenpeace found out about the trials, it enlisted the Chinese government to stop them. For all the scare talk about beta carotene, Schubert and his colleagues never mentioned the kids who were given beta carotene capsules in the studies.

Nor did Greenpeace. Their sole concern was the rice. Supporters of Golden Rice were baffled. Greenpeace was outraged. Should we allow ourselves to be subjects in a human experiment? Eventually, Tufts commissioned three reviews of the clinical trials.