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The Top 5 Lies About Biotech Crops - Don't believe the anti-biotech hype.
Reason ^ | February 22, 2013 | Ronald Bailey

Posted on 02/25/2013 6:16:14 PM PST by neverdem

The Institute for Responsible Technology, an organization opposed to crop biotechnology, has published a list of reasons to avoid GMOs—that is, genetically modified food. It’s a mish-mash of misinformation and disinformation. All of the institute’s assertions are unfounded, but here are the five most dubious claims on the list.

1. GMOs Are Unhealthy

Every independent scientific body that has ever evaluated the safety of biotech crops has found them to be safe for humans to eat.

Credit: Library of Congress
Credit: Library of Congress

A 2004 report from the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) concluded that “no adverse health effects attributed to genetic engineering have been documented in the human population.” In 2003 the International Council for Science, representing 111 national academies of science and 29 scientific unions, found “no evidence of any ill effects from the consumption of foods containing genetically modified ingredients.” The World Health Organization flatly states, “No effects on human health have been shown as a result of the consumption of such foods by the general population in the countries where they have been approved.”

In 2010, a European Commission review of 50 studies on the safety of biotech crops found “no scientific evidence associating GMOs with higher risks for the environment or for food and feed safety than conventional plants and organisms.” At its annual meeting in June, the American Medical Association endorsed a report on the labeling of bioengineered foods from its Council on Science and Public Health. The report concluded that “Bioengineered foods have been consumed for close to 20 years, and during that time, no overt consequences on human health have been reported and/or substantiated in the peer-reviewed literature.”

Unfortunately there is no shortage of fringe scientists to gin up bogus studies suggesting that biotech crops are not safe. My personal favorite in this genre is Russian researcher Irina Ermakova’s claim, unpublished in any peer-reviewed scientific journal, that eating biotech soybeans turned mouse testicles blue.

One widely publicized specious study (also cited by the IRT) was done by the French researcher Gilles-Eric Seralini and his colleagues. They reported that rats fed pesticide resistant corn died of mammary tumors and liver diseases. Seralini is the president of the scientific council of the Committee for Research and Independent Information on Genetic Engineering, which describes itself as an “independent non-profit organization of scientific counter-expertise to study GMOs, pesticides and impacts of pollutants on health and environment, and to develop non polluting alternatives.” The Committee clearly knows in advance what its researchers will find with regard to the health risks of biotech crops. But when truly independent groups, such as the European Society of Toxicologic Pathology and the French Society of Toxicologic Pathology, reviewed Seralini’s study, they found it essentially to be meretricious rubbish. Six French academies of science issued a statement declaring that the journal should never have published such a low-quality study and excoriating Seralini for orchestrating a media campaign in advance of publication. The European Food Safety Agency’s review of the Seralini study “found [it] to be inadequately designed, analysed and reported.”

Sadly, such junk science has real-world consequences, since Seralini’s article was apparently cited when Kenya made the decision to ban the importation of foods made with biotech crops.

2. GMOs Increase Herbicide Use

First, so what? This claim is simply an attempt to mislead people into thinking that more herbicide use must somehow be more dangerous. As a U.S. Department of Agriculture report has noted, planting herbicide resistant biotech crops enables farmers to substitute the more environmentally benign herbicide glyphosate[PDF] (commercially sold as Round Up) for other synthetic herbicides that are at least 3 times as toxic and that persist in the environment nearly twice as long as glyphosate.” Glyphosate has very low toxicity, breaks down quickly(PDF) in the environment, and enables farmers to practice conservation tillage, which reduces topsoil erosion by up to 90 percent. So the net environmental effect is still positive.

Credit: Library of Congress
Credit: Library of Congress

Second, it must be admitted that there are few honest brokers when it comes to this issue. Most of the research on biotech crops and herbicides is underwritten by either activist groups or industry. I have drawn my own conclusions, but I provide a fairly comprehensive review of the various studies on this question below.

When it comes to biotech crops and pesticide use data, the go-to guy for anti-biotech activists is Charles Benbrook. After a long career with various anti-biotech groups, Benbrook now serves as a research professor in the Center for Sustaining Agriculture and Natural Resources at Washington State University. He has a long history of publishing studies allegedly showing that the adoption of biotech crops boosts the use of pesticides. Four years after commercial biotech crops were first planted in the United States, for example, he concluded in 2001 that herbicide use had “modestly increased.” Benbrook’s article contradicted research published the year before by scientists with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, who had found that biotech crops had reduced pesticide applications.

In a 2004 report(PDF) funded by the Union of Concerned Scientists, Benbrook asserted that “GE [genetically engineered] corn, soybeans, and cotton have led to a 122 million pound increase in pesticide use since 1996.” In contrast, a 2005 study(PDF) in Pest Management Science, by a researcher associated with the pesticide lobby group CropLife, reported that planting biotech crops had “reduced herbicide use by 37.5million lbs.” A 2007 study(PDF) done for the self-described non-advocacy think tank National Center for Food and Agricultural Policy, founded in 1984 by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, reported that planting biotech crops in the U.S. had reduced in 2005 herbicide use by 64 million pounds and insecticide applications by about 4 million pounds. Another 2007 study, by a team of international academic researchers led by Gijs Kleter from the Institute of Food Safety at Wageningen University in the Netherlands, concluded that in the U.S., crops genetically improved to resist herbicides used 25 to 30 percent less(PDF) herbicides than conventional crops did. In 2009, Benbrook issued a report for the anti-GMO Organic Center claiming that “GE crops have been responsible for an increase of 383 million pounds of herbicide use in the U.S. over the first 13 years of commercial use of GE crops.”

Benbrook’s latest study, issued last year, found that the adoption of pest-resistant crops had reduced the application of insecticides by 123 million pounds since 1996 but increased the application of herbicides by 527 million pounds, an overall increase of about 404 million pounds of pesticides. The media—including Mother Jones’ ever-credulous anti-biotech advocate Tom Philpott— reported these results unskeptically.

Benbrook largely got his 2012 results by making some strategic extrapolations of herbicide use trends to make up for missing data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. In fact, the USDA does not provide herbicide use data for corn in 2004, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, or 2011, for soybeans in any year after 2006, and for cotton in 2002, 2004, 2006, 2009, and 2011. (The USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service is expected to issue a report updating national herbicide and insecticide usage later this year.)

As the University of Wyoming weed biologist Andrew Kniss points out, in order to get an increasing herbicide trend, Benbrook’s extrapolations turned a negative herbicide use trend for corn positive. He did the same thing to a neutral use trend for soybeans. Meanwhile, a 2012 study(PDF) by Graham Brookes and Peter Barfoot at the PG Economics consultancy found planting modern biotech crop varieties had globally cut pesticide spraying by 997 million pounds from 1996 to 2010, an overall reduction of 9.1 percent. Brookes and Barfoot calculated the amount of pesticide used by multiplying the acreage planted for each variety by the average amounts applied per acre.

3. Genetic Engineering Creates Dangerous Side Effects

The Institute for Responsible Technology’s list simply fearmongers on this one, claiming, “By mixing genes from totally unrelated species, genetic engineering unleashes a host of unpredictable side effects.” Not really.

Credit: Robby Ryke / Foter.com / CC BY-NC
Credit: Robby Ryke / Foter.com / CC BY-NC

All types of plant breeding—conventional, mutagenic, and biotech—can, on rare occasions, produce crops with unintended consequences. The 2004 NAS report that I alluded to above includes a section comparing the unintended consequences of each approach; it concludes that biotech is “not inherently hazardous.” Conventional breeding transfers thousands of unknown genes with unknown functions along with desired genes, and mutation breeding induces thousands of random mutations via chemicals or radiation. In contrast, the NAS report notes, biotech is arguably “more precise than conventional breeding methods because only known and precisely characterized genes are transferred.”

The case of mutation breeding is particularly interesting. In that method, researchers basically blast crop seeds with gamma radiation or bathe them in harsh chemicals to produce thousands of uncharacterized mutations, then plant them to see what comes up. The most interesting new mutants are then crossed with commercial varieties, which are then released to farmers. The Food and Agriculture Organization’s Mutant Varieties Database offers more 3,000 different mutated crop varieties to farmers. Many of these mutated varieties are planted as organic crops. Among of the more recent new mutant offerings are two corn varieties, Kneja 546 and Kneja 627. Whatever genetic changes wrought in these corn varieties by induced mutagenesis, they must be far less known to researchers than any changes made to standard-issue biotech crops, yet these mutants get practically no regulatory scrutiny or activist censure.

The point here is not that mutation breeding is inherently dangerous. Given its solid record of 80 years of safety, it's not. The point is that the more precise methods of modern gene-splicing are even safer than that.

The Institute for Responsible Technology warns that producing biotech crops can produce “new toxins, allergens, carcinogens, and nutritional deficiencies.” There is no evidence for any of this. Consider the panic back in 2000 over Starlink corn, in which a biotech variety approved by the EPA as feed corn got into two brands of taco shells. Some 28 people claimed that they had experienced allergic reactions to eating “contaminated” tacos. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention tested their blood and found that none reacted in a way that suggested an allergic response to Starlink. As far as cancer goes, it is worth noting that even as Americans have chowed down on billions of biotech meals, the age-adjusted cancer incidence rate has been going down. In fact, research shows that biotech corn engineered to resist insects is much lower in potent cancer-causing mycotoxins(PDF).

4. GMOs Harm the Environment

As exhibit 1 for this claim, the institute recycles the fable that biotech crops harm monarch butterflies. This particular meme was jumpstarted in 1999 when a researcher at Cornell University poisoned monarch butterfly caterpillars in his laboratory by forcing them to eat milkweed leaves coated with pollen from an insect resistant corn variety. Of course, the larvae died since the Bacillus thuringiensis gene inserted into the corn specifically targets caterpillar pests like rootworms.

Countering misinformation takes a lot of work, but eventually the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences published a series of articles evaluating the effects of biotech corn on monarch butterflies in the wild. The researchers described the product’s impact on monarch butterfly populations as negligible.” A 2011 review of more than 150 scientific articles found that “commercialized GM crops have reduced the impacts of agriculture on biodiversity, through enhanced adoption of conservation tillage practices, reduction of insecticide use and use of more environmentally benign herbicides, and increasing yields to alleviate pressure to convert additional land into agricultural use.”

Meanwhile, no matter what effects either conventional or GM crops have on biodiversity in crop fields, they pale in comparison to the impact that the introduction of modern herbicides and pesticides 60 years ago had on farmland biology. Thanks to GMOs, farmers' fields became dramatically more productive and comparatively weed- and pest-free.

5. GMOs Do Not Increase Yields, and Work Against Feeding a Hungry World

As evidence for this assertion, the institute cites the Union of Concerned Scientists' 2009 report Failure to Yield, calling it “the definitive study to date on GM crops and yield.” But this report is less than honest when evaluating biotech crop yield information: biotech crops boost yields chiefly by preventing weeds from using up sunlight and nutrients and insects destroying them.

Credit: Library of Congress
Credit: Library of Congress

More recently, a 2010 review article in Nature Biotechnology found that “of 168 results comparing yields of GM and conventional crops, 124 show positive results for adopters compared to non-adopters, 32 indicate no difference and 13 are negative.” With regard to feeding the world, yield increases are greater for poor farmers in developing countries than for farmers in rich countries. “The average yield increases for developing countries range from 16 percent for insect-resistant corn to 30 percent for insect-resistant cotton,” the Nature Biotechnology article notes, “with an 85 percent yield increase observed in a single study on herbicide-tolerant corn.”

A 2012 article by two British environmental scientists, reviewing the past 15 years of published literature on the agronomic and environmental effects of biotech crops, finds that they increase yields and produce impacts that are largely “positive in both developed and developing world contexts.” They add, “The often claimed negative impacts of GM crops have yet to materialize on large scales in the field.”

Indeed they have not.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; Politics/Elections; Technical
KEYWORDS: biotechnology; cropbiotechnology; gmo; gmos
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To: neverdem

Well, the green revolution of the 60’s and 70’s was in a sense GMO foods. They crossed varieties of grains and others that never, ever would have crossed in the wild..

But it is very, very different from using a Luther Burbank type approach versus taking a gene that doesn’t exist in any variety (like the BT, Bacillus thuringiensis gene) into crops that are eventually absorbed by human digestion.

IIRC, it has been proved that this can have some real bad effects on animals that eat these foods, because the BT toxins kill off the natural intestinal flora.


21 posted on 02/25/2013 11:11:13 PM PST by djf (I don't want to be safe. I want to be FREE!)
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To: null and void

What the Left will do next is indicate that in reducing weeds and pests on human food these GM croplands put additional pressure on natural lands because all those weeds and pests have moved on. You can’t win with the Left - a broken mind appears to stay broken despite large doses of logic.


22 posted on 02/26/2013 3:10:34 AM PST by 1010RD (First, Do No Harm)
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To: Will88; Mase

Will88 is right. Human beings have a long tradition of fear and ignorance. It is a basic right. No man can be forced to know.


23 posted on 02/26/2013 3:11:52 AM PST by 1010RD (First, Do No Harm)
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To: SeminoleCounty

Yep. Monsanto and crew have been fighting tooth and nail to try to stop GMO-free foods from being labeled as such:

http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_24246.cfm


24 posted on 02/26/2013 3:59:45 AM PST by 9YearLurker
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To: Carry_Okie
Monsanto's "RoundUp Ready" genes

Interesting case before the Supreme Court last week. A 70 year old farmer in Sanborn, IN went to his local feed store and bought bags of soybeans that had been bagged for feed. He planted them as a double crop after his winter wheat and gambled on the fact that the RoundUp Ready genes were passed on. He seeded and treated with ROundUp and sure enough, the beans grew weed free. Monsanto sued him for patent violation. Very interesting case. (Vernon Hugh Bowman v. Monsanto Co.)

The thing that struck me is that genetically modified plants and seeds are getting loose in the environment. It is bound to have unpredictable side effects as you have pointed out with your posts here. In theory, an unanticipated mutation or cross pollination could leave us without a species of food crop.

25 posted on 02/26/2013 4:11:44 AM PST by IamConservative (The soul of my lifes journey is Liberty!)
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To: deweyfrank

Yes. This is the reason the companies are so strict about catching and replanting the seed.

The technology belongs to the company and they have spent billions to develop it. You agree to that when you buy the seed. You don’t have to buy the seed but if you do you have to agree to their terms.


26 posted on 02/26/2013 6:21:56 AM PST by tiki
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To: Carry_Okie

True, if you have planted Roundup ready corn and follow it with Roundup ready cotton then the corn that comes up in the cotton can’t be killed with Roundup. It is a pain and you have to spray with Fusilade or some other product.

We’ve only grown corn once but we just cultivated and the corn shaded out the cotton that was left.

Around here a lot of farmers aren’t planting the 10% refuge acres and the insects may become immune and if you don’t use a high enough rate of roundup and kill all the weeds those that survive will be roundup resistant.


27 posted on 02/26/2013 6:38:47 AM PST by tiki
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To: allmendream
More people have died from herbal supplements than have ever been harmed eating GM food.

None of you have any clue how many have died from GMO food or any other substance used by humans, other than those that have short term lethal impacts. GMO foods have only been common for ten to twenty years and like anything else, the long term effects are not yet known.

But it continues to amaze how the shills for GMO foods are so willing to withhold very basic information from consumers that could easily be provided. You and others are right there in a long line of self-important know-it-alls (or bought off parrots) who will deny basic rights to others for whatever personal agenda you might have.

Few things in modern life are simpler: give consumers basic information about products and let them decide what they want to purchase. BUT, that's what you and others are afraid of: consumers with the knowledge and freedom to make their own decisions.

You're playing Big Brother, whether you're honest enough to admit or not. But, whatever, turn on your big HDTV Big Brother monitor and do your required morning exercises, then BB will give you further instructions in how to live your life.

Its hilarious and pathetic: folks afraid to let individuals make individual decisions so they withhold basic information. Some folks just don't like freedom, especally for people other than themselves. Those tendencies have been around forever.

28 posted on 02/26/2013 7:27:41 AM PST by Will88
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To: Will88
Lol, no one can say whether there will be problems with GMO foods, and there will soon be more meat products from GMO animals and fish

But you agree that companies can still label their foods as non-genetically engineered, right? When they do, shouldn't scared consumers, like you, beat a path to their door? They are free to do so, and you are free to seek them out. Demanding that the industry react to a problem that doesn't exist is not how rational people, and rational societies, behave.

Consumers have a right to know what they are buying, and to buy or not buy based upon what, in their judgment. is best for them.

I can only imagine how boring dinner is at the Will88 household since you don't serve any products that have been genetically modified. Tell me what you and your family eats to avoid the dreaded GMO foodstuff. Other than a few tree nuts, and a number of species of fish, I have a hard time thinking of any foods that have not been genetically modified over time. It doesn't matter if it is selective breeding or splicing with a gene gun, the results are the same - the latter just gets you there faster.

You want to scare stupid people for no reason other than to benefit those who are pushing non-GMO food. Yup, it's the non-GMO industry that wants this as much as possible. Hey, we should demand that any product containing dihydrogen monoxide be listed as such on the label! That's stuff kills a lot of people every year, especially children. If people knew their beverage contained this dangerous stuff, they would be better informed and could make the "right" decision. It's their right to know, dammit!

You want government to be Big Brother and decide what consumers can or cannot know about what they buy.

You've said a lot of inane things over the years and this is another. Here you are arguing that the government should force industry to label something on their packages that has been going on for thousands of years, to create concern where none exists. You could be a good little liberal employed by the CSPI. This is the kind of crap they do every day of the week. In their (and your) twisted world, Norman Borlaug was an evil man who should never have subjected so many starving people to the needless risk of GMO foods. Of course, Rachel Carson was a hero because she alerted us to the dangers of certain chemicals in our environment. Saving us from those chemicals only cost the lives of tens of millions, mostly children, but she protected our rights, and the rights of animals.

Millions of children die from vitamin A deficiency. Those evil GMO folks have found a way to create rice that offers the vitamin A that these kids are not currently getting. In your world of weirdness, this product would not come to market.

Where does your do-gooding end Will88? Are you also demanding that potatoes list arsenic as an ingredient? How about demanding that orange juice list limonene on the label? It's used in paint stripper after all. Lima beans have cyanide. Shouldn't that be on the package? The water you drink and the air you breathe contains benzene. Now that's one dangerous chemical. Why isn't the government warning people? When you roast meats, benzene also formed...where's the damn warning label? You don't even want to know all of the dangerous chemical compounds that are formed when coffee beans are roasted. Yet, I don't see any warning labels. What'sup with that? The foods you eat every day contain all kinds of cancer causing chemicals yet we don't see you crusading for basic labeling information to that fact. Why not? It's a basic right, isn't it? Looks like you have your work cut out for you, Will. Better get busy, there are a lot of rights to uphold and a lot of lives to save....now say it with me....FOR THE CHILDREN!!

29 posted on 02/26/2013 7:32:12 AM PST by Mase (Save me from the people who would save me from myself!)
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To: tiki
if you don’t use a high enough rate of roundup and kill all the weeds those that survive will be roundup resistant.

That's the big problem, and the potential is to make glyphosate, the DDT of herbicides, virtually useless. It's a crime (literally), a theft from the American people who protected Monsanto's inventions and paid a premium on the resulting product for 34 years. Now that it's public domain, they're wrecking the usefulness of the product. Thankfully, I'm quite some distance from a farm, but I have little doubt that the genetics will make their way here some day.

30 posted on 02/26/2013 7:34:06 AM PST by Carry_Okie (The environment is too complex and too important to be "protected" by government.)
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To: IamConservative

What I want to know is how Monsanto found out that this guy planted the seed that he bought as feed. Unless this guy went about bragging and some weasel ratted on him or he wanted to take on Monsanto.


31 posted on 02/26/2013 7:34:29 AM PST by tiki
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To: 1010RD
I agree. He is entitled to his ignorance and fear, and no one works harder than he does to protect this right.


32 posted on 02/26/2013 7:37:07 AM PST by Mase (Save me from the people who would save me from myself!)
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To: IamConservative
In theory, an unanticipated mutation or cross pollination could leave us without a species of food crop.

How would you like Yosemite choked with unstoppable weeds? Monsanto invented that product with no consideration for its attendant and demonstrable liabilities, because they are operating with the blessing of the USDA, FDA, etc. Now I have NO problem with GMOs in principle, but I do think that socialized risk has distorted research and product development priorities. That and Monsanto's ridiculously aggressive legal team.

These thug lawyers at Monsanto have sued farmers when RoundUp Ready pollen escaped and pollinated adjacent fields. What if I didn't want their damned genes, I'm supposed to pay a royalty anyway? Gad.

33 posted on 02/26/2013 7:42:43 AM PST by Carry_Okie (The environment is too complex and too important to be "protected" by government.)
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To: Will88

More government regulations for people who refuse to educate themselves! It is the conservative thing to do!!! / s

Herbal supplements are unregulated in dosage and untested for safety, and we don’t need to know the long term effects to know they can be lethal in the short term.


34 posted on 02/26/2013 7:49:15 AM PST by allmendream (Tea Party did not send GOP to D.C. to negotiate the terms of our surrender to socialism)
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To: Carry_Okie

So because of regulatory capture we cannot trust the FDA, USDA or really any government watchdog.

Because of the profit motive we cannot trust big business or any business for that matter.

So the solution is?


35 posted on 02/26/2013 7:50:53 AM PST by 1010RD (First, Do No Harm)
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To: tiki
What I want to know is how Monsanto found out that this guy planted the seed that he bought as feed. Unless this guy went about bragging and some weasel ratted on him or he wanted to take on Monsanto.

I don't know specifically, but my guess would be he did tell his friends at the coffee shop that he got RoundUp Ready from the feed store for a few dollars per bushel and word got around to his Monsanto Seed Dealer who in turn made the complaint to corporate. Sandborn is a small rural community. Probably didn't have to change hands more than 3-4 times to get back to the dealer.

36 posted on 02/26/2013 8:07:58 AM PST by IamConservative (The soul of my lifes journey is Liberty!)
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To: 1010RD
So because of regulatory capture we cannot trust the FDA, USDA or really any government watchdog.

Correct. The reason terrorists flew two airplanes into the WTC is that the FAA had approved cheesy cockpit doors and unarmed pilots when no insurer in his right mind would. The Israelis had already shown us the solutions and they were ignored because of socialized risk.

Because of the profit motive we cannot trust big business or any business for that matter.

A correctly designed marketplace with appropriate antitrust laws can assure an effective competitive architecture with appropriate checks and balances. There are three interlocking forces involved: the owner of the asset at risk, the verifier of both performance to specification and efficacy, and the insurers of all three (not the same person).

If I get time, I'll post a diagram. Until then, and as to the role of verification, think "Underwriters' Laboratories" and what might happen if they had competitors.

37 posted on 02/26/2013 8:29:19 AM PST by Carry_Okie (The environment is too complex and too important to be "protected" by government.)
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To: USARightSide

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/16/health/16diet.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

Since 1983, the American Association of Poison Control Centers has kept statistics on reports of poisonings for every type of substance, including dietary supplements. That first year, there were 14,006 reports related to the use of vitamins, minerals, essential oils — which are not classified as a dietary supplement but are widely sold in supplement stores for a variety of uses — and homeopathic remedies. Herbs were not categorized that year, because they were rarely used then.

By 2005, the number had grown ninefold: 125,595 incidents were reported related to vitamins, minerals, essential oils, herbs and other supplements. In all, over the 23-year span, the association — a national organization of state and local poison centers — has received more than 1.6 million reports of exposures to such products, including 251,799 that were serious enough to require hospitalization. From 1983 to 2004 there were 230 reported deaths from supplements


38 posted on 02/26/2013 8:35:04 AM PST by allmendream (Tea Party did not send GOP to D.C. to negotiate the terms of our surrender to socialism)
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To: neverdem

I am allergic to GMO wheat and had to switch to natural spelt in the mid 1990’s. That was before I went low-carb, though.


39 posted on 02/26/2013 9:53:58 AM PST by TheOldLady
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To: Mase; allmendream

Just more nonsense from all of you. Nothing could be simpler: give consumers basic information about products and let them decide what to buy. But that’s precisely what the producers of GMO foods do not want to happen, just as some industries have fought country of origin labeling and other basic disclosures about their products for decades.

And if you’ve ever studied the conditions necessary for the free market most everyone here claims to support, you’d already know that knowledge as to price and product is necessary for both the seller and buyer under free market conditions.

But carry on with your nonsense and anti-freedom, anti-free market positions. Many have preceded you and many will follow, and they also all had their self-serving agendas wrapped in self-serving nonsense, just as you do.

(And another dumb and predictable tactic you use is to ascribe characteristics to others (FEAR) rather than addressing the real issue: the right of consumers to have basic information about products so they can make their choices based on their priorities and not yours.)


40 posted on 02/26/2013 7:47:36 PM PST by Will88
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