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To: Scythian
This serves as an excellent example of the downside to the incredible advances we've made in analytical chemistry. Being able to detect ever smaller amounts of substances has also given us a dramatic increase in the amount of chemicalphobia in the public. These folks at Natural News are chemicalphobes of the highest order.

You can find just about any toxin you want in our urine or blood if you're able to measure for it in parts per trillion. The average American eats 1 1/2 grams of natural pesticides a day which is about 10,000 times more than the amount of artificial pesticides consumed. Pretty scary, eh? Many natural crops contain more pesticides than the ones treated synthetically. Broccoli, cabbage, celery and apples are examples of produce high in natural pesticides.

Celery purchased in a supermarket will contain, on average, about 800 parts per billion of the natural chemical psoralen. Psoralen is used by celery as a natural means of fending off predators and, in high doses, can damage DNA and tissue in humans. Organic celery, grown without the use of synthetic pesticides, has been shown to contain as much as 6,000 parts per billion of psoralen. Potatoes contain solanine which is a naturally occurring toxin used to protect against blight. In humans, solanine can cause paralysis and death. But....but.....it's natural.....

Unfortunately, the chemicalphobes at Natural News (and chemicalphobes in general) never learned a very basic tenet of toxicology, the dosage makes the poison.

This article is just more silly alarmism from people who understand little about chemistry. They act like it is far worse that people obtain trace amounts of Bt from their food rather than consume a bunch of fumonisins from corn not treated with Bt. This kind of idiocy never solves problems; it only causes them.

24 posted on 05/25/2011 8:49:20 AM PDT by Mase (Save me from the people who would save me from myself!)
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To: Mase
Published in the journal Reproductive Toxicology, the study explains that Bt toxin enters the body not only through direct consumption of GMOs, but also from consumption of meat, milk and eggs from animals whose feed contains GMOs.

The study was not performed by Natural News, but by the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Sherbrooke Hospital Centre in Quebec, Can., and then published in Reproductive Toxicology

Wiser heads will ignore any alarmism, or knee-jerk dismissiveness from both extremes that surround this sort of question.

More information and study is needed, but if the industry made claims that such substances in GMO foods would not end up in the bodies of humans, and that has been proven false, then that is a significant finding.

27 posted on 05/25/2011 9:02:31 AM PDT by Will88
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