Ramanisblog

Tag: Genetically modified organism

  • GMO Report Debate.

    I posted on GM and Monsanto on the havoc it creats on the ecosystem and our Health.

    I found a report on GMO.

    I have also found an article, which tries to debunk the Report(I am confused by the article as to whether it is for or against GMO!)

    Following are the Excerpts.

    I am of the opinion that GM products are an aberration of Science.because it is untested and has no concern for anyone except for profits.

    Story:

    However, a large and growing body of scientific and other authoritative evidence shows that these claims are not true. On the contrary, evidence presented in this report indicates that GM crops:

    A quote on GMO.
    GMO View
    • Are laboratory-made, using technology that is totally different from natural breeding methods, and pose different risks from non-GM crops
    • Can be toxic, allergenic or less nutritious than their natural counterparts
    • Are not adequately regulated to ensure safety
    • Do not increase yield potential
    • Do not reduce pesticide use but increase it
    • Create serious problems for farmers, including herbicide-tolerant “superweeds”, compromised soil quality, and increased disease susceptibility in crops
    • Have mixed economic effects
    • Harm soil quality, disrupt ecosystems, and reduce biodiversity
    • Do not offer effective solutions to climate change
    • Are as energy-hungry as any other chemically-farmed crops
    • Cannot solve the problem of world hunger but distract from its real causes – poverty, lack of access to food and, increasingly, lack of access to land to grow it on.

    Based on the evidence presented in this report, there is no need to take risks with GM crops when effective, readily available, and sustainable solutions to the problems that GM technology is claimed to address already exist. Conventional plant breeding, in some cases helped by safe modern technologies like gene mapping and marker assisted selection, continues to outperform GM in producing high-yield, drought-tolerant, and pest- and disease-resistant crops that can meet our present and future food needs.

    Download a PDF of the full GMO Myths and Truths report

    The other Story:

    For example, the indefatigable blogger known as Orac (he is a medical doctor and cancer researcher) regularly debunks proponents of alternative medicine and leaders of the anti-vaccine movement. Numerous science writers have been similarly dogged, such as Emily Willingham and Seth Mnookin, author of the acclaimed book, The Panic Virus.

    In contrast, the highly charged issue of genetically modified foods doesn’t receive the same level of attention from the science blogosphere and mainstream media. This puzzles me. (A notable exception did occur recently when anti-GMO campaigners threatened to destroy field research in the UK. Many science journalists and bloggers–mostly in the UK–leapt into the fray and defended the besieged plant scientists.) Last week, for instance, Iwondered why a recent study that demonstrated environmental benefits of GMOs didn’t get more press.

    In fact, some of the supposedly pro-science media (at least when it comes to climate change) on the progressive political spectrum , such as the environmental website Grist, have often published dubious coverage of GMOs. I was, however, pleasantly surprised to see this well-reported piecejust appear at the Mother Jones site. So did a number of commenters, one who wrote:..

    Thanks for an article that talks about science and not the gm scaremongering that we see most of the time on MJ (my only pet peeve about Mother Jones).

    That scaremongering–which is a staple at Grist–evidently flows from A) numerous misconceptions about biotechnology in general; B) anti-corporatist sentiments; and C) a litany of unfounded health and environmental concerns.

    It so happens that the worst offenders of GMO alarmism and misinformation are environmental groups, such as Greenpeace and the Union of Concerned Scientists. No, wait, I take that back. The absolute worst purveyors of falsehoods about GMOs are the same folks who preach against vaccines and tout all manner of unproven alternative health remedies. People like self-appointed health guru Joseph Mercola whose popular website is a “horrible chimera of tabloid journalism” and “uncommonly efficient at spreading misinformation,” according to the the Science-Based Medicine blog.

    What underlies the propaganda that Mercola (and those like him) disseminate about autism, vaccines, cancer, GMOs, etc., is a “natural health” philosophy. A similar in-harmony-with-nature mindset explains much of the environmentalist squeamishness towards genetically modified foods. Greenpeace, for instance, warns that GMOs

    can spread through nature and interbreed with natural organisms, thereby contaminating non ‘GE’ environments and future generations in an unforeseeable and uncontrollable way.

    In truth, the uncontrollable spread of disinformation about GMOs is what’s really contaminating the environment. The latest, most egregious example is a report with an Orwellian title, “GMO Myths and Truths” that purports to be science-based. It was done by a UK-based nonprofit group called Earth Open Source, which

    challenges the use of pesticides, synthetic fertilizers, and genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in agriculture on the grounds of the scientifically proven hazards that they pose to health and the environment and on the grounds of the negative social and economic impacts of these technologies.”

    Sources:

    http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/collideascape/2012/06/20/look-beyond-the-scientific-veneer-of-a-gmo-report/#.UZWV2KJTCXe

    http://earthopensource.org/index.php/reports/58-gmo-myths-and-truths

    Genetically Modified Foods has been suspected of being hazardous to health.

     

    There has been wide spread  agitation on the introduction of BT Brinjal in India.

     

    There seems to be undue haste in promoting BT Brinjals in India,whenMonsanto has already ruined our Agriculturists.
    The side effects of BT on soil and the health of humans are yet to be fully studied.
    Why hurry?
    Karnataka is Right

    http://ramanisblog.in/2012/09/21/gm-corn-causes-tumour-and-reduces-life-span/

     

     

  • Monsanto Causes Three Lakh Farmers Suicide in India. Movie

    I had already blogged on how Monsanto is ruining the Agriculture in India.

    Al Jazeera has pointed out that nearly three lakh farmers have committed suicide being hit by Monsanto operations.

    Do we want to add small retailers to this list by inviting Wal-Mart and others though by FDI in India?

    Monsanto.
    Monsanto.

    Story from Al Jazeera.

    Writing in 2009, physicist and author Vandana Shiva outlinedMonsanto’s contributions to a “suicide economy” in India, such as an increase in the price per kilogram of cotton seeds from 7 to 17,000 rupees. Shiva lists additional complications:

    “Indigenous cotton varieties can be intercropped with food crops. Bt-cotton can only be grown as a monoculture. Indigenous cotton is rain fed. Bt-cotton needs irrigation. Indigenous varieties are pest resistant. Bt-cotton, even though promoted as resistant to the bollworm, has created new pests, and to control these new pests, farmers are using 13 times more pesticides then they were using prior to introduction of Bt-cotton. And finally, Monsanto sells its GMO seeds on fraudulent claims of yields of 1500/kg/year when farmers harvest 300-400 kg/year on an average.”

    There are a couple of reasons why mass farmer suicides have not generated the international attention that should ostensibly accompany such a phenomenon. For one thing, the image of desperate peasants killing themselves by the hundreds of thousands does not mesh particularly well with the portrait of India fabricated by free market pundits, who hallucinate rampant upward economic mobility among the country’s citizens thanks to globalisation.

    According to filmmaker Leah Borromeo, director of the forthcoming Dirty White Gold about cotton and fashion, the dearth of international concern over the issue is also a result of the fact that “people haven’t made the connection between our consumer habits and the lives and deaths of farmers”.

    The objective of the film, which shines a light on the entire cotton supply chain, is to help force legislation that will “make ethics and sustainability the norm in the fashion industry”. As Borromeo wrote in a recent articlefor the New Statesman:

    “I’m exploring science and the idea of open-sourcing technology to take power away from corporations and anyone who makes a killing out of suicides.”

    Borromeo’s definition of ethics and sustainability – which includes providing living wages to farmers and factory workers and preventing the destruction of ecosystems – is far more persuasive than Monsanto’s definition of sustainable agriculture…..

    http://www.reddit.com/tb/14i8lg

    Watch the Movie.

     

     

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  • Modified Apple Triggers Virulent New Virus diseases .

    Playing with Nature ,especially with Plants,Food shall have disastrous consequences.

    Monsanto seems to be doing this with impunity.

    Government looks on.

    Best way to stop Corporates in their tracks is to ignore the Product .

    Apples, once the darling of nutrition, have become genetically modified (GMO) to increase production, sales and profits. The once formidable addition to our diets has become a shadow of its former self because apples no longer have the nutritional value of their chemical-free predecessors.

    Some scientists opine that GMO apples have 76% less nutritional value than the chemical-free, organic version of the same food. A chemical-free, natural organic apple has significantly higher levels of all 21 nutrients analyzed compared with genetically modified fruits including vitamin C (27% more), magnesium (29% more), iron (21% more) and phosphorous (14% more).

    How did a treasured American fruit become not only tasteless but harmful to children and adults alike? It is because the food industry uses the Cauliflower Mosaic Virus (CaMV) as a “gene promoter” to create these new apples.

    The apple seed is split with the virus so that a pesticide gene can be inserted to kill insects. The pesticide causes the stomachs of insects to explode.

    The Cauliflower Mosaic Virus is used because it is a powerful virus that cannot be destroyed during gene splitting. It is a retro-virus that alters the RNA, that causes changes in the DNA, resulting in similar viruses that ultimately become HIV, Leukemia Virus and hepatitis B. This is a very dangerous virus. Industry scientists ignore the axiom, “If you play with fire, you get burned.”

    The virus is found in every cell of the DNA and RNA of the GMO apple and the residue in the apples stays in your gut and leads to Crohn’s disease, IBD and IBS.

    Dr. Daniel C. Dantini, a noted expert on the topic of food allergies and intolerance, opines that, “Any virus, bacteria, parasite, or yeast can inflame the intestine.” This will lead to immune problems within the body, inflammation and even include delayed food allergies.

    It also produces “more virulent new virus diseases . . . CaMV viruses may also incorporate genes from the host plant creating virulent new diseases”. Professor Joe Cummins made it clear that there is still a statistical risk involved for the creation of a dangerous virus. Much like a sci-fi film, it is another “mad scientist” playing with fire. From Frankenstein to Swamp Thing, films and literature are filled with these types of experiments gone bad.

    According to author and expert, Jeffrey M. Smith, “This means that long after we stop eating GMOs [apples], we may still have potentially harmful GM proteins produced continuously inside of us.”

    Sadly, genetically modified apples are further contaminated by the need for the farmer to use multiple applications of pesticides. More than 400 chemical pesticides are regularly used in genetic farming to kill weeds, insects and other pests. If that number frightens you, consider this: non-organic apples are routinely sprayed up to 16 times with 36 different pesticides before being picked. Then the apples are sprayed with ethylene and covered with wax to make them look prettier.

    In addition, Big Food scientists even field tested chicken genes in apples. Chicken genes? What were they trying to do? Get the apples to sprout wings and fly to the market to save shipping costs? Make no mistake about it, these are not the apples your grandparents ate every day. Nor the “one a day keeps the doctor away” apples that doctors recommend.

    As a result, Americans are eating an abnormal, adulterated copies of natural organic apples (modified by a “mad scientist” in a lab) soaked in pesticides and sprayed with chemicals. Do you really want to feed an adulterated apple to your child?

    If you feed your child an apple a day, it will not keep the doctor away. On the contrary, a child will be exposed to more viruses, the possibility of childhood illness and disease, weight gain and obesity. Adults fare no better eating a genetically modified chemically soaked apple a day.

    For expectant mothers, these are the types of foods that lead to chemically altering the DNA of a fetus and/or starting that fetus down the road to childhood diseases. Just look at the growing statistics on childhood illnesses to validate the problem. Is this what we want in our society – chemical garbage instead of the “real thing”? Do we really want to make our children chemical dump sites for Big Food?

    Johnny Appleseed lived by the Golden Rule as he planted the seeds of apples in the United States. He remained connected to nature and mankind through his deeply religious values. He was known to have no fear of man or beast.

    One can only wonder how sad he would be to realize that the beast within man could destroy those beautiful seeds and have no conscious about harming others. What ever happened to that Golden Rule? Johnny Appleseed must be turning over in his grave.

    This is why the nutritional value of GMO apples are negligible. Anything that increases the number of harmful chemicals in your body should be avoided.  Any fruit that can alter your DNA and RNA and leave bacterias and viruses in your intestines should be banned from public consumption.

    The food industry scientists are rolling the dice with peoples’ lives. If they roll the dice long enough, society will lose. That loss is already measured by the increase in diabetes, cancer, kidney and liver failure and the long line of Americans waiting for kidney and liver transplants.

    None of this happened before scientists created genetically modified foods and more than 9,000 addictive chemicals now used in our food supply.

    Mannie Barling and Ashley F. Brooks, R.N., are the authors of award winning books – Arthritis, Inflammation, Gout, Crohn’s, IBD and IBS – How to Eliminate Pain and Extend your Life (Books and Authors 2010 Best Books in the Health, Diet & Reference Categories) and Mannie’s Diet and Enzyme Formula – A Change of Lifestyle Diet Designed for Everyone (Blogger News Net 2010 Best Health And Nutrition Book Award winner) available at HowToEliminatePain.com, Amazon, Barnes&Noble, and other booksellers around the world.

    http://www.bloggernews.net/125881

    The industry marketing pitch to the public is that bioengineered seeds and plants will help the environment by reducing toxic herbicide/pesticide use. Isolated examples are given, but the overall reality is exactly opposite. The majority of GM agricultural products are developed specifically for toxin-resistance ~ namely for higher doses of herbicides/ pesticides sold by the largest producer companies ~ Monsanto, Dupont Novaris, Dow, Bayer, Ciba-Geigy, Hoescht, AgroEvo, and Rhone-Poulenc.

    http://musicians4freedom.com/2010/12/30/harmful-effects-of-genetically-modified-foods/


  • Monsanto triggers Diseases in plants,animals and humans-Study.

    Herbicide glyphosate effect in weeds, maize cr...
    Image via Wikipedia

     

    It is really astonishing how a company with such products is allowed to function,

    Money talks!

    Read my blogs on the same subject under Health.

    Story:

    Don Huber spent 35 years as a plant pathologist at Purdue University and knows a lot about what causes green plants to turn yellow and die prematurely. He asked the seed dealer why the SDS was so severe in the one area of the field and not the other. “Did you plant something there last year that wasn’t planted in the rest of the field?” he asked. Sure enough, precisely where the severe SDS was, the dealer had grown alfalfa, which he later killed off at the end of the season by spraying a glyphosate-based herbicide (such as Roundup). The healthy part of the field, on the other hand, had been planted to sweet corn and hadn’t received glyphosate.

    This was yet another confirmation that Roundup was triggering SDS. In many fields, the evidence is even more obvious. The disease was most severe at the ends of rows where the herbicide applicator looped back to make another pass (see photo). That’s where extra Roundup was applied.

    Don’s a scientist; it takes more than a few photos for him to draw conclusions. But Don’s got more—lots more. For over 20 years, Don studied Roundup’s active ingredient glyphosate. He’s one of the world’s experts. And he can rattle off study after study that eliminate any doubt that glyphosate is contributing not only to the huge increase in SDS, but to the outbreak of numerous other diseases. (See selected reading list.)

    Sudden Death Syndrome is more severe at the ends of rows, where Roundup dose is strongest. Photo by Amy Bandy.

    Roundup: The perfect storm for plant disease

    More than 30% of all herbicides sprayed anywhere contain glyphosate—the world’s bestselling weed killer. It was patented by Monsanto for use in their Roundup brand, which became more popular when they introduced “Roundup Ready” crops starting in 1996. These genetically modified (GM) plants, which now include soy, corn, cotton, canola, and sugar beets, have inserted genetic material from viruses and bacteria that allows the crops to withstand applications of normally deadly Roundup.
    http://current.com/technology/92927602_monsantos-roundup-triggers-over-40-plant-diseases-and-endangers-human-and-animal-health.htm?xid=320