Genetic Chile, the movie trailer, genetic-chile.com

[tigerlily7100]

monsanto has more plans for death and destruction in Hawaii please help us 

[gleongabo]

0:28 "the haven't decreased pesticides use" hummm, what about this reserach papers: Science. 2010 Oct 8;330(6001):222-5. Areawide suppression of European corn borer with Bt maize reaps savings to non-Bt maize growers. Or this other "Impact of Bt cotton on pesticide poisoning in smallholder agriculture: A panel data analysis". Look the abstract: "Bt cotton has reduced pesticide applications by 50%, with the largest reductions of 70% occurring in the most toxic types of chemicals" Clear as water.

[BullhornJournal]

@gleongabo Glad you bring up Bt, which comprises less than 20% of GM corn grown in the U.S. Bt is not yet sold for human consumption. Bt codes for a toxin. I suspect your cited studies did not bother weighing the tons of that toxin released into the environment. I suspect your studies did not speculate for future increases in pesticide use as the Bt becomes less effective against predictably resistant pests. I will continue...

[BullhornJournal]

@gleongabo I also suspect you have not watched the entire film, much like an undergrad who doesn't read the whole book but pretends to be an expert, because the film is primarily about glyphosate, which is a dying technology (even the chemical companies admit as much), has created 22 documented 'superweeds' and added tremendously to pesticide use. There are larger questions, so, I will continue...

[BullhornJournal]

@gleongabo I'm all for scientific inquiry. But let's see where we'd be at if all the money poured into the Green Revolution was, instead, put into into agroechological, sustainable (truly sustainable, not 20 years, but many human generations) methods. Well, the number one contributor to green house gasses and anthropogenic climate change is the industrial, monoculture food model you seem intent on defending. With a sane approach to Ag over half GHGs are not our there choking all of us right now.

[BullhornJournal]

@gleongabo Let's talk about the whole system. Really? The best approach to feeding humans is monoculture crops of a few barely edible varieties that require tons of chemicals, need buffer zones of non-GMO around them, are wholly owned by a few giant chemical companies, and have the demonstrable, knowable effect of increasing resource consolidation and starvation (Have you read the IAASTD)? Really? Is this the world you want to hand your children? Really? Are they paying you?

[BullhornJournal]

@gleongabo And finally... There is nothing clear about the water anymore. You can't drink from lakes or streams anymore. You know why? Lots of reasons. But one stands out in my mind right now: chemicals. Chemicals that were dumped by companies with hordes of scientists who all vociferously defended their safety, efficacy and benefits to mankind.

[BullhornJournal]

@gleongabo why do you feel the need to defend the Multinational Corporate destruction of OUR environment? I'm sure, as I've had many of these discussions, that you feel GMOs hold the key to ending world hunger. They're the potential Magic Bullet. Well, sometimes things that should be good are not actually good. I can elaborate if you wish. Here's a small start: Scientists may have done what no other group of humans in history have ever been able to do, literally make the world uninhabitable.

[BullhornJournal]

@gleongabo I'm all for scientific inquiry, btw. In fact, I'm one of the lone defenders of science in this debate. We see people beginning to distrust vaccines. It's absurd. I'm sure you agree. But you know what's at the root of their distrust of the science of vaccines? Science for profit (have a look at the anti-vaccine web pages, you always come to the profit seeking behind the vaccines as the supposed 'cause'). The distrust of profit motives is not absurd. But it is rubbing off on you.

[BubbaBrazille]

You're right, though, this discussion is getting boring as we're obviously in permanent disagreement. Want to get into the philosophy of rationality? come over and bitch at me about my next film: Building John Henry

buildingjohnhenry (with a d o t) com

[BullhornJournal]

With GMOs the main concern is that they lead to land and water consolidation into fewer, wealthier hands; they drive up unemployment and poverty in every country they are introduced (UN, World Health Organization, World Bank finding in the IAASTD, 2008). Scientists who look not at the actual consequences of their technologies and instead toward the theoretical, Utopian possibilities, give ammunition to the anti-science crowd. Who is the defender of science in this film? I am. Join me!

[BullhornJournal]

Fighting the 'Go along, get a grant' crowd since 2009!

[PlantMolCellBio]

@BullhornJournal You seriously have no idea of what it takes to get a grant. You are an insult to public research scientists that dedicate their time to serving the public good, training the next generation of scientists and helping understand how plant biology works. Must be nice to know all the answers. Not only is it almost impossible to get a grant these days, grants go to the rule breakers and the innovators. Anyone just "going along" is DOA.

[BubbaBrazille]

"Progress comes at a price sometimes. Always has." this comment was made by someone who continues to call me a 'science denier'. This comment is in relation to the nuclear tragedy unfolding in Japan. This is exactly what I'm trying to warn scientists against. Statements like this propel the real science deniers (the anti-vaccine crowd, climate change deniers). It is what happens when you live in a box and think you're actions are justified because you "intend good, damn the bodies."

[swampwaffle]

I guess I didn't reply because it is boring. Whatever I give you will never be enough.  It is science denial, the same stuff that climate scientists are up against. I provided you with three crops with multiple long-term independent studies (below). The EU released a compilation of 50 studies in December that show no harmful effects. That's the EU! Nice cherry picking on the Japan tragedy. Progress comes at a price sometimes. Always has.

[BubbaBrazille]

@swampwaffle As I've said again and again, safety is the least of the issues. Yes, I stand corrected. You found three long-term studies of GMOs that are not related to glyphosate or Bt. Your EU compendium of industry studies is as valid as Monsanto's word, I'm sure. So I guess, yes, it was denial. I will have to amend my statement from now on: There has never been a single, long term, independent food-safety study of GMOs for Glyphosate tolerance?

[BubbaBrazille]

@BubbaBrazille or a study of Bt of this nature. The two combined comprise nearly 99 percent of GMOs in nature. Congratulations, you proved me wrong on about .003 percent of available GMOs.

[PlantMolCellBio]

@BubbaBrazille It's me PlantMolCellBio I provided those three examples because I was told by people on this thread that I could not provide one. I provided three. This is three times more than I was told I could not provide. Now, as usual, time to move the goalpost on the guy that just put three footballs through the uprights. Typical.

[PlantMolCellBio]

@BubbaBrazille I'll dig up references on this, they certainly exist. The opposite is not true. Are there repeatable, long-term studies that show danger? No. There are some low-impact, non-repeatable ones, but none in the long term with solid evidence. I guess the fact that billions of people eat the stuff every day, along with gajillions of farm animals, with no evidence of harm, might also be interpreted as a non-effect in a substantial population. Of course, not a formal study.

[BubbaBrazille]

@swampwaffle but your accusation that I'm somehow denying science hurts. I'm defending science and pointing out the reason all the people find it easy to imagine harm from vaccines and that the vast majority of climate scientists are wrong. They can come up with this stuff because scientists keep pushing technologies that catastrophically harm the planet. Technologies that should be good, for sure, but when released into the chaotic natural realm express unintended consequences.

[BullhornJournal]

@swampwaffle btw, my name is Christopher Dudley. I'm a filmmaker in Albuquerque, New Mexico. I wonder if you would make these statements in a public forum? Japan is covered in radiation and you say, "Progress comes at a price." Really? I suggest that you lack the courage of your words. You are the scientist that now matriculates up through the corporate backed, moral morass of the University system. Salk refused to patent the polio vaccine. I suggest you look to him for guidance, for your soul.

[swampwaffle]

@BullhornJournal Hi Christopher. Kevin Folta here. The situation in Japan is a tragedy- no doubt. It is a situation brought about because of human demands for electric power. That is what I mean by progress-price. It is an alternative to carbon-intense dirty energy. It is not a perfect solution and you can bet the next generation of power plants will be quite different. We're learning as a people. Overall, technology has been a good thing, punctuated by mistakes. We learn. Forward.

[swampwaffle]

@BullhornJournal , just FYI, no corporate backing. Zero. Our products, resources, information, etc. are produced with federal or local industry support and are freely distributed in the public domain, within rules and guidelines of course. Salk is an excellent guide. I wonder how he'd feel about making unfound assertions about another person's intent or character. I'm glad you do what you do, I'm glad to help you understand the science. I'm not up for ad hominem attacks with no evidence.

[swampwaffle]

@BullhornJournal and feel free to drop me a note any time via email. I'd be glad to talk to you in a place where we're not watching the letter count. You'd probably be surprised that we're more on the same side of this than you think...

[PlantMolCellBio]

BJ asks: a long-term (2 year at least 3 generations) independent study of any GMO. ANY GMO.

3 off the top of my head.

Papaya Ringspot Virus resistant papaya- awesome stuff by the USDA (Goncalves et al) and tremendous safety record for a decade.

Plum Pox Virus resistant plum (again independent) all USDA scientists (Scorza et al). Safe, effective etc since 1990

Transgenic plants with cystatins- stuff by Atkinson et al. Amazing amount of work on animal safety and environmental impact.

[BullhornJournal]

@PlantMolCellBio I missed this comment and thought you'd disappeared. I'll look at these. If I have to amend my statement to reflect that a few studies have been done on non-glyphosate or Bt producing GMOs (which comprise over 99% of GMOs worldwide), then I will. BTW, I think we need look no further than Japan's nuclear disaster to see technologies that should be good but aren't.

[BubbaBrazille]

@PlantMolCellBio None on glyphosate or Bt? You've provided studies on some pretty obscure GMOs. Granted, they technically correct my statements. Yes, one-third of one-percent of GMOs, notably those other than glyphosate tolerant or Bt producing (99%) and not produced by Monsanto, have apparently been tested.

[PlantMolCellBio]

BJ, Before I engage this let's set a few goalposts that you and cannot move. Tell me exactly what you want for a study- journal, impact, etc. Then I'd like you to provide an identical study with the same rigor that demonstrates harm. I can give you independent, peer-reviewed, non-industry studies. I can also do that for those that deny the science of vaccines, climate change and evolution, but it does not change their message. I don't want the same to happen here.

[BullhornJournal]

@PMCB, Okay, awesome. there are no long term, independent, multi-generational studies of any kind, positive or negative. So, please link one if you know of it. You'll be the first whose ever answered that question. I've asked many, many times.

Oh, and I vaccinate my children. I'm deeply concerned about man's demonstrable effects on climate and, well, as far as evolution I think I'll just hoot and throw some crap at you.

GMOs drive resource consolidation and, subsequently, hunger and death.

[PlantMolCellBio]

@BullhornJournal . Very good. I'll give some published evidence that supports no evidence of harm. Cool on vax/climate/evo- you can understand evidence. I can work with that. Your last comment says it all. You don't like the social inequities based on current practices. That's a social/business problem, not a scientific one. The science says safe and effective. That's why it is a problem in your eyes. In the right hands it could be used to help these issues. That's the real problem.

[BullhornJournal]

@PlantMolCellBio a long-term (2 year at least 3 generations) independent study of any GMO. ANY GMO.

I can appreciate the desire to push the science apart and away from the economic realities. But scientists are not working in a vacuum. In fact, I think the great failure of science, and to its long-term detrement, scientists want to pretend that they are not part of the overall environment, that the work they are doing 'should' be good so therefore it is good.

[BullhornJournal]

@PlantMolCellBio It's like this Salmon that grows twice as fast. On first glance, of course this is a good thing, right? Well, would they have produced the fish if there was no profit motive? Salk refused to patent his vaccine. So the motive is profit. It's not feeding people. Feeding people is hogwash.

The second GMOs are no longer patentable all of the researchers and companies blabbing about feeding the hungry will disappear to some other profitable enterprise.

[PlantMolCellBio]

@BullhornJournal Just about everything you eat is patented. The seeds are patented, germplasm is protected- at least the elite, most productive materials. Profits ensure that businesses can maintain output of improved products. Hybrids have protected company interests for almost 100 years. Your second point in nonsense. Don't pretend like you know my, or any scientist's motivations. You don't. There are people that want to use technology to help people. It already does.

[BullhornJournal]

@PlantMolCellBio So, this is probably where we really part, do you really believe that not one of these salmon will end up in the ocean? That, over the next couple hundred years or thousand years, an unexpectedly viable salmon won't be stolen and released into the wild? It's as if despite all of your knowledge of the particulars of nature you, scientists, are bereft of any understanding of her global, relatively timeless, enigmatic machinations.

[PlantMolCellBio]

@BullhornJournal Salmon etc. You can say this about any technology. Nuclear fuels, medicines, you name it. You can't let your fears stop technology. The environment and many people need help. Science can address these problems with new technology.

[BullhornJournal]

@PlantMolCellBio Still no reply? Still no long-term, independent food safety study of even one single GMO. And to answer your request for a study demonstrating harm, well, one cannot be done because the industry owns the patents and also controls who can use the seeds and to what purpose. They would never allow a real, independent study. This fact alone should give any person who is concerned about the future of food pause.

Now kindly remove your GMOs from my food. Oh, wait, you can't.

[BullhornJournal]

Anyone who would like to witness the paradoxical faith that many of today's scientists have regarding the efficacy of the GMO system should read PlantMolCellBio's posts and my refutations. I suspect we won't get a single specific argument about one single issue from him or her. Oh, but we might get another industry backed study!

[BullhornJournal]

"Any one who tells you that they know what the long term effects of GMOs will be are either lying to you or are ignorant of the history of science. No one knows what the long term effects will be." -- Prof. Emeritus and geneticist, Dr. David Suzuki.

[BullhornJournal]

@PlantMolCellBio I guess I have to go and look up your study. But I suspect it's funded by generous grants from the likes of Monsanto. I suspect that there is not one single, long term, independent, multi-generational food safety study. I suspect that benefitting 'farmers' are really multi-national corporations. Again, you refute nothing in the World Health Organization's IAASTD. No direct refutation of any, single issue. Just disparaging remarks about me.

[PlantMolCellBio]

Those interested in the facts of the situation should read the National Academies report, "Impact of Genetically Engineered Crops on Farm Sustainability in the United States". It was assembled and refereed by a panel of academic and industry scientists representing many schools of thought. It is free to read online. This book clearly states the pros and cons of GM, all based on peer-reviewed, replicated research rather than opinions and websites.

[BullhornJournal]

@PlantMolCellBio. Yes I make assumptions, because you all sound exactly the same, offer industry backed, short term studies and call people who question the GMO systems, 'anti-scientist'. You all sound exactly the same. It's weird. Never, never providing a single peer-reviewed, independent, long term food safety study. Never addressing the problem of GMOs driving more and more land resources into the hands of fewer and fewer multinational corporations. Never addressing a single issue.

[BullhornJournal]

@PlantMolCellBio. Yes I make assumptions, because you all sound exactly the same, offer industry backed, short term studies and call people who question the GMO systems, 'anti-scientist'. You all sound exactly the same. It's weird. Never, never providing a single peer-reviewed, independent, long term food safety study. Never addressing the problem of GMOs driving more and more land resources into the hands of fewer and fewer multinational corporations. Never addressing a single issue.

[BullhornJournal]

@PlantMolCellBio I guess I have to go and look up your study. But I suspect it's funded by generous grants from the likes of Monsanto. I suspect that there is not one single, long term, independent, multi-generational food safety study. I suspect that benefitting 'farmers' are really multi-national corporations. Again, you refute nothing in the World Health Organization's IAASTD. No direct refutation of any, single issue. Just disparaging remarks about me.

[PlantMolCellBio]

Wow BullhornJournal, you certainly make a lot of assumptions about me, my work, and my intentions. As much as I'd like to address your assertions, it is clear that you don't want to debate science as much as attack the scientist (who does not get a dime from GM industry, by the way). It is the same tactic used by those that attack the sound science of vaccination or evolution. Sure, GM is not perfect, no science is. But to attack technology that is safe and could help people is ignorance.

[BullhornJournal]

@PlantMolCellBio ha ha ha. Try and apply for a public university job while making it clear that you have some, even slight, concerns about the efficacy of patenting the food supply. See how many interviews you get and then, after being rejected for the university's fears your slight hesitation might have on industry funding, and then tell me that scientists don't get 'one dime' from the GMO industry. Your argument is a simple canard and belies a questioning mind, one a scientist should have.

[PlantMolCellBio]

Do not increase yield? Check Bt cotton in India and the USA, HR corn in China. Many examples. And even if yields don't increase the plants that are grown require fewer agricultural inputs. Are you going to seriously say that 90% of farmers are wrong? No way! if it didn't work, they would not use it. The other BS in this trailer is the allegations against GM seed producers. Seed has been proprietary for 100 years. Hybrids don't self and breed true. It is all BS by anti-scientists

[BullhornJournal]

@PlantMolCellBio Using industry funny math that says a plant that makes less fruit makes more fruit, then yes, GM plants increase yield. Yes, using industry standards, a plant with technology that is not sustainable in the long-term (we're already seeing specific predation to both Bt and Glyph) is sustainable. See the new sustainable is not sustainable. Agreed, over the short term agricultural inputs decrease. But the problems only grow as you scientists keep this 'war' mindset against nature.

[BullhornJournal]

@PlantMolCellBio According to the IAASTD, which I venture to guess you've not read--4 years, 400 scientists, UN, WHO, World Bank report--GM crops chiefly (their number is top 5 percent of farmers) benefit large farming operations and, in fact, and bold letters too, push further consolidation of land and water resources into fewer and fewer hands. So i guess you're talking about the 90 percent of farmers you've read about in the Monsanto subsidized reports?

[BullhornJournal]

@PlantMolCellBio Farmers use this technology because they're on the treadmill your mindset started 60 years ago. Here's a fact. More people are starving to death today than when the green revolution started, both as a total number, and, AND as a percentage. Hunger is not a production issue. Hunger is a political and social issue. Your work for multinaitonals only furthers the hunger problem as it helps drive more and more farmers into the hands of the biotech industry.

[BullhornJournal]

@PlantMolCellBio PVP has been available to breeders for a long time. The ownership of specific genetic codes transferable to all offspring is new and started in the late 70s with a Supreme Court ruling. Now, somewhere close to 20 percent of the genes in your body are 'owned' by private industry. I find this offensive. I'm sure quantifying and claiming ownership of the whole of the world's genetic character seems okay to you. To my mind it is the most dangerous of precedents.

[BullhornJournal]

@PlantMolCellBio Yeah, right, 'anti-scientist'. No, I'm just anti anybody who pretends that the revolutionary products of biotechnology are exactly the same as traditionally bred plants. The facts are, genes have been known to express more than one protein. There are far fewer genes in the human genome than first assumed (when your crowd was all salivating over all the money you could make) leading to the conclusion that genes work in concert and in ways yet not completely understood.

[BullhornJournal]

@PlantMolCellBio So... Your group, industry funded, has decided that it is okay to put a revolutionary technology into the food supply without even having the common courtesy of telling us you've put it in our food. I find this very, very rude. Whether or not it is safe is irrelevant to my choice as an independent person.

[BullhornJournal]

@PlantMolCellBio And, finally, of all the scientists I've debated on this issue, all claim that their interest is feeding the hungry. And yet not one of them has even read the IAASTD, the largest most inclusive independent study ever completed to address the problem of world hunger. Pie in the sky has GMO feeding the world. But the reality is much different. Funny how the scientist have such faith in this technology that they would release it absent of the precautionary principle.