this is a distraction from important issues, and ought be a part of the vetting process for serious parties. the anti-gmo movement is intellectually equivalent to the anti-vaxxers, or people that think the moon landing was faked, or people opposed to teaching sex ed or evolution in public schools. it's worse than fringe. it's moronic. when i did my initial research in my riding, and saw the ndp candidate was openly anti-gmo, i immediately ruled out voting for her.

and, i'm very left-wing. it's just that it indicates a level of scientific illiteracy and general dumbassery that we should really be staunchly aware of in analyzing how we put people into positions of power. we can't be electing people that get their information from sketchy internet tabloids and don't have the academic background and/or intellectual abilities to do proper research to debunk it.

"i read it on the internet. it was even in a meme. how could it be wrong?"

if you're concerned about pesticides, that's a more valid concern. but, understand that the point of this was to minimize pesticide use. neither conventional nor "organic" agriculture are solutions - they're both worse. there is an answer, though - although brad wall won't like it.

if we were to grow indoors, we would not need pesticides because we could control the temperature and keep pests out with physical barriers. we could also layer growing, so as to increase production by multiple factors over the same piece of land.

i would really suggest people stop wasting their time arguing against gmos, and start spending it more productively in building infrastructure for indoor growing techniques.

http://ipolitics.ca/2015/10/13/brad-wall-to-party-leaders-whats-your-stance-on-gmos/

Mp
Quite right!

Please read my comment below. The NDP and Liberals used to be pro-GMO, and proudly so!

deathtokoalas
the liberals are the only pro-science party, and will not do anything stupid on this file.

ang
What the hell is a pro science party, oh you mean pro gmo paid for scientists, party, or paid for GSK scientists party, or paid for ie corrupt science party...........

Again what does science have to do with corruption of big corportations, tell me again?

deathtokoalas
a pro-science party is a party that bases it's decisions on empirical evidence, rather than ideological leanings. the liberals are famous for it. detractors claim they stand for nothing, they hold no convictions. i think the lack of an ideology is an attractive quality.

mp
But, doesn't Justin Trudeau claim that we need to follow the precautionary principle on GMOs? And isn't it a little late for that? And wouldn't the precautionary principle actually result in a complete slow-down in all forms of innovation?

Take the Keystone pipeline for instance. It's being held up with the precautionary principle, and this has cost Hilary Clinton the blue-collar vote.

deathtokoalas
i think you've misunderstood what he's said.

i'm not interested in stumping. i would not identify as a liberal. this is just a longstanding problem i've had with the ndp, and what passes for the left nowadays, in general.

and, what's stopping the keystone has nothing to do with a "precautionary principle". it's straight geo-politics. the americans don't want us exporting oil.

but, as a climate activist, i would argue that this is beyond precautions - it is settled science. we don't need more reviews. we don't need more studies. it is perfectly clear that we need to stop oil sands production altogether, and we should have stopped it yesterday.

if there was an option in this election that opposes any of the pipelines, i would support it.

--

4imps
A ton of science without an ounce of humanity is just dangerous science. Lots of science is done in the same way that the law is implemented. No humanity, no conscience. no story, no justice. Since when did man think he could do a better job of providing sustainable food on planet earth? When was it our job to "fix" nature rather than never break it? I find the arrogance of science and the greed of humanity in this regard to be the worst of who we are as a species. I'm convinced that the more science understands nature the more they will realize how wrong we have been in the way we have used and abused it rather than worked with it as our teacher and our most intelligent provider.

deathtokoalas
because 90% of species don't die out.

this is creationism in disguise.

4imps
I'd like you to clarify your comment about "because 90% of species don't die out" please.

deathtokoalas
most new species fail very quickly, because they're unable to adapt to or modify the environment around them. evolution is primarily composed of dead ends. the successes are rare and far between each other.

4imps
Like most comments on scientific research or heresay or wherever you got this information from it too is evolutionary and will most inevitably become as you say, a dead end.

deathtokoalas
i have no idea what you just said.

4imps
I'll try again. Scientific research is also evolutionary and as you said "evolution is primarily composed of dead ends".

deathtokoalas
i still don't really understand your point.

what i was pointing out is that humans have evolved to learn how to change our environment. that's what we do. it's kind of the basis of the entire field of anthropology. and, i'll cede the point that we need to be careful about how we change the environment, because it could lead us to a dead end, for example through climate change. but we also need to realize that our ability to change the environment is intrinsically intertwined with our survival, and that being cautious must not rule out changing it at all.

science isn't really "evolutionary", so much as it's based on trial and error. certainly, what we learn is subject to constant modification. but, i don't really see how you're tying that in to the discussion.

i don't really think that modifying corn to be resistant to pesticides is the best use of genetics. but, there's a lot of other possible uses - like the vitamin A in rice thing - that don't suggest to me the likelihood of this particular field being a dead end.

ang
That was a failure, the vitamin A in the rice thing, the rice didnt produce anywhere near the amount quoted, was cheaper to plant real ordinary rice, and buy a carrot for the vitamin A. The GMO company invested so much in all that publicity, a major marketing loss. Also they marketed (too aggressively) GMO cotton to illiterate farmers in India, the cotton failed, as they "forgot"to tell the Indian peasant farmers, that unlike their traditional cotton seed, this GMO seed needed irrigation. Crops failed, put animals on crops, animals died. The only way to get rid of their sudden debts, was for the husbands, to suicide, so they drank the u beaut glyphosate, that was part of the deal. Yes glyphosate does kill, when you drink it straight....... 40,000 peasant farmers, that survived using their own cotton seed, after using failed GMO seed, suicided........... GMO corn, with bt toxins in it, after 10 years, no longer kills the caterpillars, and nematodes it was designed to kill, but they cant get the toxins out of the corn in USA now, so the rest of the world are burning it before it can cross pollinate.

deathtokoalas
the vitamin A content in the rice has increased, and is now at very high levels. you're operating on very old information. and it's not easy to import carrots to poor people in asia. that's the point.

4imps
Well if a creationist is someone that trusts nature to be more intelligent than you for instance, sure.

deathtokoalas
so long as we're anthropomorphizing nature, tell me: what is it's gender?

yes: it's creationism. you're separating "humans" and "nature" out as two different things, which is the enforced garden of eden narrative. you're then pushing the biblical narrative that we were given the earth to take care of it.

it's a lot of nonsense.

nature is not separate from us; it *is* us. we are animals. we interact with what is around us. we change it. we have every right to - as a bird has a right to build a nest. there's no magic in it, no secret force that keeps things in "balance". that's fairy tale thinking. magic. disney films. religion...

i don't mind getting these arguments from the right. you expect it. but, it make me very angry to hear them coming from the left, which is supposed to be about secular, rational, empirical thinking.

4imps
I do not think we are separate from nature. I understand our connection which is exactly why I would not approve of someone genetically modifying me and expecting others to reproduce with me weather they liked it or not. I think man is so tiny in terms of our understanding of the whole and you can say that's biblical, spiritual or whatever makes you feel like you have the narrative you need to comfort you, that's assuming you ever need comfort. What do you know about the right and the left? Aren't we all one?

deathtokoalas
no, i think we're all individuals with individual thought processes and that attempts to have us conform to irrational, conforming, right-wing narratives should be fought with every possible tool we can fight them with.

are you aware that most domesticated agricultural crops are hybrids?

4imps
Yes, I am, and I also understand that every time we hybridize things we weaken its natural resistance to evolve in a way that would strengthen its survival. We have gone out on a very flimsy limb regarding our food production and medicine.

deathtokoalas
no. hybridization does not "weaken natural resistance to evolve", whatever that means. rather, there is a broadly observed effect called hybrid vigour that leads to greater fitness in hybrids. the theory that we've developed to fit this observation is that greater variation produces a higher likelihood of dominance through gene flow.

plants, particularly, hybridize very regularly in the wild. they don't need us to hybridize them. they can do that on their own.

again, there is a lingering creationism underlying your perspective that species are distinct, and any interbreeding is somehow unnatural. but, we have learned that the opposite is true: that hybridization occurs regularly in nature (especially in plants) and that it leads to greater fitness. it is one of the primary mechanisms of plant evolution.

ang
You are leading to the yes its OK to put pig genetics in plants, arent you, another Monsanto player, with a different stroke. hahaha, you all talking to yourselves again........ hilarious......... well deathtokoalas, you are earning your Monsanto money............ hahaha!

deathtokoalas
i don't see any particular reason why splicing pig genes with plant genes should be ruled out, in principle, if there's an understood benefit and no understood harm. i'm not exactly jumping to do it. but, if somebody has a good idea with it, i'm not going to rule it out on ideological reasons or unfounded fears.

4imps
Yes plants can hybridize/evolve on their own so let them. You're suggesting that we should take our right to force them into marriages they otherwise would not select.

Species are distinct in the way that I am a very small piece of the whole but because I am included in it I have a function. Holy shit, more Jesus talk I guess?

deathtokoalas
well, they don't have anything resembling free will. it's mostly randomness. you can't really talk about a plant making a choice. and, this idea of function is somewhat of a very careful point in evolutionary biology that it's probably better to step away from, right now.

are you equally opposed to selective breeding - specifically in plants?

4imps
Aha. You can only ever assume plants can't make choices. Otherwise you are taking on the role of the very deity you cannot accept in a spiritual way. I'm completely opposed to f#$@ing with nature. I feel like we have gone full circle with this conversation in that science is only ever good when it has some humanity attracted to it. Otherwise you're just dangerous, cold hearted scientists. Good day.

deathtokoalas
well, i think we can study plants and conclude that they don't have nervous systems. that's pretty convincing, i think.

what i'm pointing out is that if you really want to take this approach, then you need to reanalyze a lot of things you take for granted. gmos aren't such a dramatic shift from the things we've done in the past to control and shape the environment around us - it's just another type of artificial selection, and we've been doing that for millennia.

--

Sallyh
Note the Conservatives don't really answer the question but instead attack the other parties on their stance.
As larger corporate agri-businesses buy out smaller players the world will find itself relying on a monopolized industry for growing food . Smaller family operated farms subjected to cross contamination from GMO plots are being sued for infringement on corporate property rights today and as their power increases there will be a marked decrease in the number of independent farms world wide.

.As with every new technology that supposedly increases production and quality improvements all plants and animals will adapt and create new resistance strains. More and more chemicals and newer modifications will need to be developed with little to no research being done on the possible harmful effects on mammals fish ,plants or the environment.

Science needs to be very careful about implementing wide scale use of GMOs until we understand the all the ramifications of this technology.

Mp
So, thirty years of science isn't enough?

sallyh
What exactly have they been researching? Ways to increase yield, bug resistance, profit margins , market share? How much money is being spent on the affects on health and environment? Please give some figures that show where the research money is being spent and whether the research is being done by public scientist or corporate scientists. Are the result published or kept hidden?

deathtokoalas
this is equivalent to arguing that we don't know that apples aren't a risk factor for bubonic plague, because we haven't done any direct research.

but, we know what happens to the atoms that were once apples when we eat an apple, and we know what causes bubonic plague, and so we can say "while there has been no testing on a relation between apples and plague, we have no reason to think there is any connection."

the anti-gmo crowd does not have any kind of mechanism to present. they have no proposition as to how long term gmo consumption may have some effect. nor is there any reason to think we're going to digest chains of sugars differently because a chain of protein (which we also digest) is off by a few nucleotides.

it's not even science fiction. it's a very right-wing, ideologically conservative fear of the unknown.

sallyh
In others words let's modify the genetic make up of plants and animals and hope we aren't unleashing some new exotic disease around the globe. I have yet to receive an answer as to what research if any is being done to see if there is or isn't an impact on plants, animals or the environment. You have far more faith in the scientist working for these corporations then I. Their research is suppressed if it shows there may be negative consequences that will impact their bottom line as a result of using some of their products. Take a look at children born with deformities from Thalidomide if you want to see what can happen when companies ignore their responsibility to insure their products are safe.
By the way I am not now nor have I ever been a right-wing ideologically driven Conservative. I'm not foolish enough to trust that corporations care about anything other than their profits. Unfortunately there are plenty of people like you willing to take that risk.

jason
Seems like there would need to be a plausible way that you COULD unleash some exotic new disease around the globe by altering the genetic make up of plants before it would be worth while to worry about whether it will happen or not... right?

sallyh
How would you know if it is or isn't plausible if you don't do any research on the possibility? I'm no geneticist nor I suspect are you. There's new discoveries being made all the time that would never have occurred had no one gone looking. We wouldn't have the health and safety regulations we have today if no one did the research to find out what is or isn't dangerous to humans. Take asbestos as an example. Who knew the fibers would lodge in your lungs and could kill you yet we have stopped mining it and now remediate houses that have asbestos in them because of these findings. I suspect when asbestos was first mined and used in many industrial applications no one dreamt there was anything to be concerned about. Why would anyone object to having as much information as possible on new products.

jason
But what are you looking for? Shouldn't there be some mechanism that you're going to test? If there's no known mechanism that an effect would happen, how do you test for that? Take you asbestos example. At one time we did not know it was possible for fibers to lodge in lungs. So how could we specifically have tested for that? It would have taken somebody with exceptional foresight to come up with a plausible mechanism for harm, design a test for this theory and carry this out. Without that plausible mechanism, what are you testing?

Besides.., to say there has been no testing is an exaggeration. There has been testing and it has shown no evidence that there are any "unknown" issues that warrant further study.

No one is objecting to more information, but who wants to pay for blindly running tests in hopes of finding something that you don't even suspect exists? Where would that approach end?

sallyh
Isn't blind testing what drug companies are mandated to do when developing new medications? They spend millions in research and more often than not the new product never makes it to market because of the adverse reactions

jason
Drug companies have to go through safety testing, yes. New gmo introductions go through the exact same safety testing. But blind testing doesn't meant hey are "blindly" looking for any effect.

sallyh
I think drug companies have much more stringent regulations in place that require they do extensive testing in all areas before they will get approval. Most drugs never make it through the testing process because they cast such a broad net when doing their research.

jason
Nope... Same tests, regarding safety. Drugs also have to go through efficacy tests to insure they have the effect in humans that they're intended to have. But they only go onto efficacy once they've passed the safety tests. GMOs are not intended to treat any symptoms so are not required to test for that effect.

Many drugs fail in the efficacy tests because they don't show the intended effects.

sallyh
I'll take your word on that as my experience in dealing with drug companies was for animal use only.

deathtokoalas
i might even go so far as to suggest that, because we understand digestion, we can state with a high degree of certainty that there cannot be a difference between digesting corn that is or is not gmo. your stomach is unable to determine where the nucleotides are, or care. digestion works the same way, regardless.

the only mechanism i've seen is this idea of possible gene transfer to gut bacteria. but, there's no reason to think there's a greater chance of gene transfer in gmos than there is in non-gmos.

the kind of uncertainty that existed with asbestos, or with smoking, isn't really present. your body gets a bunch of molecules that are strung together with bonds, and breaks the bonds the same way it would with any other corn, or wheat, or whatever.

jackson
The only things that I can think of are things that are already known and tested for during the development process

1) Protein created in a GMO could have some domain that people are allergic to.
2) The new protein could catalyze a reaction that produces some compound that is toxic.
3) An siRNA construct designed to penetrate mammalian cells could target some mRNA strand necessary for cellular function.

deathtokoalas
yes. you want to make sure you check for these things, of course, before you put something on the market. and everybody at every step of the process realizes it.

it's the "unknown unknowns" they want to throw at you. and, it's hard to argue against besides pointing out that it's impossible. but, they take that as a concession! you get that argument with people challenging climate science, too. i had it the other day. i got him to admit that the ipcc report ruled out all known natural causes, but he wouldn't crack on the possibility of there being unknown natural causes. on some level he's right, but when you get to that point it's just an end to possible discourse.

it's just that if you want people to take you seriously, you need to provide some concept of cause and effect. the reason there hasn't been a lot of studies done, is that nobody can effectively articulate anything that needs to be studied. as mentioned, there aren't studies on links between apples and plague. there aren't studies on the links between oranges and tuberculosis.

the idea that there's some danger simply doesn't make any sense. it's right-wing fear mongering. and it's all a consequence of the fact that this is something that you don't understand.

sallyh
Thank God drug companies are forced to do research on possible cause and effect when developing new drugs rather then adopt your approach. The cost of identifying these possible complications is why new drugs are so expensive. I don't think that's fear mongering or an unreasonable means of developing new technology. Look at the stink being raised about fracking and how much misinformation is out there. Is it or isn't it responsible for contamination of drinking water? Who knows because nobody did the research to find out before they started drilling. Did the possibility even occur to these companies that that was a possibility? Are the concerns of people who live near these drilling sites just fear mongering?

All I'm saying is we need to proceed with caution when introducing new technologies and try to anticipate any possible adverse effects that may not become apparent for years and the best way to mitigate those possibilities is by thinking outside the box and looking at different theories.

deathtokoalas
no - i agree that when or where there are defined concerns, testing should be done. but it has been, and i'd defer to one of jackson's posts (things about allergies, or toxins). when a drug company does testing, it comes up with concrete concerns that it has developed through an understanding of the chemistry of the drug and our bodies. i'm in full support of that kind of testing with gmos. but, it's broadly been done already. and, if you have specific suggestions for further testing, i'm sure the applicable people would be eager to look into it, if your argument is compelling.

but, your position is "gmos might affect us in some way that we don't understand", and it's just not a reasonable position to take, relative to our rather deep understanding of the chemical processes involved in digestion. we can state with a great degree of certainty that there's absolutely no reason why it should. and, the limited concerns that have come up have been addressed.

do you have a specific concern that you'd like to see greater testing regarding?

sallyh
I do have concerns with what genes are being alter that change how the plants cells interact with the cells of naturally occurring spores, bugs and weeds they encounter in nature. Will it cause the cells or immunity systems in these living organisms to mutate in order to survive. Is this going to start a chain reaction of adaptation in nature? Do these modified genes react differently with human cells when the products are consumed? Will they effect our own immune system ? What testing has been done? Have GMOs been around long enough for some of these issues to occur? I probably have others but since this is far from being a subject I have spent much time thinking about I would be interested to read your comments .

deathtokoalas
gene transfer is a very rare phenomenon, especially across distances as far as plants and bugs. that can be ruled out a priori. insofar as the modifications we're doing are concerned, i'm not sure the effects of cross-pollination with weeds would be all that much of a concern, either. wheat would be more likely than corn, because it's a grass. but, you have to understand that not just any two plants can cross-pollinate. there's maybe some room for curiosity here, but i don't see any possible negative consequences.

i don't see any reason to suggest issues about plant immune systems.

i'm not sure which "human cells" you're thinking about. when you eat something, it goes into a pit of acid and is broken down into constituent parts. i don't know where interaction with "human cells" may occur. but, this is the area where testing has been done, and negative effects have been ruled out to the best of our current abilities - regarding possible toxins, allergins and other reactions we can think of and measure. your stomach really doesn't know the difference between one strand of protein and another - it breaks it all down the same way.

again, i don't know what kind of mechanism you would propose for an effect on the immune system, and think it can be ruled out fairly safely, a priori.

see, it's healthy that you're asking questions. but these questions do have answers.