Science And GMOs Are Not The Bad Guys Here

[roseBudd]

http://www.forbes.com/fdc/welcome_mjx.shtml

Humans do science, and because we bring our own personalized lenses and biases to whatever we do, science will involve error. But the wonderful thing about science is that it’s a self-correcting process that over time, disciplines itself. How did we discover the real effects of tobacco or DDT that ultimately were revealed? Science made those revelations, and science provided the data everyone needed to know the truth....

But let’s come full circle here and accept that other lenses are relevant and that science doesn’t need to answer all the problems related to feeding our exploding population. What does Hoffman offer up instead? Her core solution is

"Meanwhile, again and again, simple low-cost, low-tech solutions like “kitchen gardening,” improved agricultural methods, and cover cropping have been found to give outstanding nutritional and economic results quickly to farmers. If people can grow a carrot or yam for far less expense and trouble than developing a strange looking rice (it is bright yellow – and we think getting people to eat brown rice has been hard!) – why aren’t carrots or yams the first stop for solving the problem?"

Here’s where that whole issue of “different ways of describing the world” gets tricky for Hoffman. Why? Because what she’s talking about is upending entire cultural and dietary practices–such as replacing rice for the millions of people who rely so heavily on it–for the sake of having them consume carrots and yams instead. So it seems that it’s OK to take someone’s lens on their world, their culture, and replace it entirely with something utterly and culturally different–and in some cases, alien–to them as long as you’re not using science. Although, of course, science is what tells us whether or not her suggested solutions (also based in science) will work. For example, science could probably tell us how tenable “kitchen gardens” are for people who live in resource-poor, high-population-density areas with little access to what’s needed for a kitchen garden.

She argues that orange rice will be offputting because getting people to eat brown rice is difficult. The reason for the latter is that brown rice is viewed in many parts of the world as a “poor person’s rice” and white rice as a sort of mark of social status. It is also not as readily available or inexpensive as white rice because of low demand. Neither of these factors has anything to do with the success or not of Golden Rice, the very name of which implies otherwise. (It’s actually quite a lovely color, reminiscent of saffron rice.)

In her effort to offer up a sweeping indictment of science because of a “trust issue,” Hoffman has instead offered up a top-down approach, insisting that entire cultures replace their customary diet with foods that themselves have undergone considerable human-directed engineering. That kind of short-sighted viewpoint on the world could benefit from a broader lens.

[mike_c]

1. the kick and the rec....

Thank you for posting this.

[roseBudd]

6. I Fucking Love Science....

The antiGMO activists engage in misrepresentations, and embrace bad science. Assuming Seralini isn't a stupid man, what he and those who promoted his so called results, that were not based on scientific and statistical practices was fraudulent, unethical (animal cruelty) and designed just as surely as the death panel lies, to inflame.

[carla]

15. The Seralini study

you disparage was extensively peer-reviewed and was politically lambasted by Europeans beholden to gmo's for their careers. I am a farmer, I grow organics, I do my research and you are spouting nonsense. Seralini's study provides exactly the kind of research that proves gmos are not a healthful alternative to anything but corporate bankruptcy. Don't try to pull the wool over others eyes when you don't know of what you speak. I do know and I can tell you, YOU are WRONG, as wrong as gmos.

[roseBudd]

20. False. Seralini used Sprague-Dawley rats....

who spontaneously develop tumors. Ten control animals are inadequate. Seralini discovered nothing but noise.

The peers have spoken, and it doesn't lead to Seralini's science was peer reviewed. it tomk 700 scientists demanding he release his fraudulent data.

http://www.science20.com/news_articles/700_researchers_call_gilleseric_seralini_release_gmo_test_data-95574

http://esciencenews.com/sources/scientific.blogging/2012/10/23/700.researchers.call.on.gilles.eric.seralini.to.release.gmo.test.data

http://www.foodnavigator.com/Science-Nutrition/Hundreds-of-scientists-urge-Seralini-to-release-full-GM-maize-study-data

http://www.geneticliteracyproject.org/2012/10/22/scientists-call-out-french-researchers-to-release-gmo-test-data/#.Uh6HYNJzFGM

Bet you won't read this

A scientific analysis of the rat study conducted by
Gilles-Eric Séralini et al.

http://www.vib.be/en/news/Documents/20121008_EN_Analyse%20rattenstudie%20S%C3%A9ralini%20et%20al.pdf

The results of the experiment
Despite the abovementioned fundamental errors in the research design, we will subject the results
to further scrutiny. What do we discover?

Negative checks in comparison with the treatments

The results of Séralini et al.’s experiment show that there were fewer deaths among the male
animals whose diet comprised food with 22 or 33% genetically modified maize (= negative control)
(the left hand side of the figure below). This is remarkable given that the genetically modified maize
was herbicide tolerant, and no new properties that may have had health advantages for the rats. We
see the same result after Roundup was added to the drinking water. There were fewer deaths among
the male rats that had drunk the highest concentration of Roundup than among those who had
drunk pure water (the right hand side of the figure below). And this while Roundup certainly does not
contain any known life-extending properties. The researchers should have taken these observations
as a warning that there was something wrong with the experiment, because if these results were
correct it would mean that consuming large amounts of genetically modified NK603 maize or
Roundup would be a way to live longer. These strange findings are not interpretable because as
noted previously there is something fundamentally wrong with the research design.

Analysis of the death rate

There is no statistical analysis of the number of deaths in the manuscript. Based on the figures, there
are virtually no reliable differences in the death rates to be found among the males. This is probably
because the average death rate within the control group is virtually the same as the average of all
the treated groups put together. Among the female animals, there were differences, but this is
probably because the average death rate in the control group is low in comparison to the treated
group, but is also half as low as it is for the male animals.

The research design once again plays a role in the analysis. Because there are not enough control
groups and control animals in the study, there is also insufficient reliable data on spontaneous death.
If Séralini et al. had included a control group for each treatment, or a control group that was twice as
large as the treated group to compensate for the lack of internal standards, then they would most
probably have found a variance in death rate among the control group that they have now avoided.
It is not clear whether all the animals died of tumors.

The conclusion is that Séralini et al. did not find any reliable differences in the death rates between
the treated and untreated animals.

Analysis of the tumors

Séralini et al. make an unusual distinction between small and large tumors and between external
palpable tumors and internal tumors. In carcinogenicity studies, tumors are normally always
investigated separately: the incidence per type of tumor is looked at and compared with the
incidence in the control animals, and with the historical incidence in the lab itself (which is lacking in
this study).

Séralini et al. find differences in the number of large tumors; in the differences in the number
between the males and the females in the control group; and a difference in the number of large
tumors among the treated and control female animals. The size of a tumor, however, is not related,
on the face of it, to how serious it is. Séralini et al. had to put down all the female control animals
that developed tumors before the end of the experiment to put an end to their suffering, which is a
measure of the seriousness of the tumors

What they fail to report, however, is that the observed effects in many cases overlap with the effects
that were observed in the control groups. They can only invoke non-dose-related effects as an
explanation if these effects are not observed in the control group, and that is not the case. Over
and above this, in their conclusion Séralini and his team attribute the non-dose-related effects to the
non-linear endocrine-disrupting effects of Roundup. They ignore the fact that comparable non-linear
effects can also be seen in the treatments that did not include Roundup, perhaps because this would
undermine their conclusion. And, as we noted previously, for several of the treatments the lowest
mortality was among those who had been given the highest doses. Mortality increases in line with
the dose when the substance is in actual fact carcinogenic.

Because of the small number of control animals and the absence of adequate controls, the reliability
of the limited data is seriously compromised and so Séralini et al. go to great lengths to find
explanations for their findings. They ignore, however, the most obvious explanation, namely that
the established variability in the data is not supported by a proper research design, which
precludes adequate interpretation of the data. Moreover, they use an unorthodox statistical
method (‘two class discriminant analysis’) that aims at finding differences instead of investigating
differences between the treated animals and the control group.

In other words, they are only looking for interpretations that support their theory.

Dose-effect relationship

Further analysis of the data in the study shows that no relationship was found between the dose
(the amount of GMO and/or Roundup) and the effect (tumors/pathologies/death rate). Séralini et al.
acknowledge this in their article and explain it by claiming that:
“As is often the case for hormonal diseases, most observed effects in this study were not
proportional to the dose of the treatment (GM maize with and without Roundup application,
Roundup alone), non-monotonic, and with a threshold effect.”

Misleading

There are also other places in the publication where there is evidence of incorrect interpretation of
the results or a one-sided presentation of these. For instance, there is only a photograph of a treated
rat that developed a tumor. There are no photographs of control rats. It was this photo of the rat
that was sent around the world. And, to show the pathologies that developed in greater detail, rats
from the control group that had not developed tumors were selected, while from the treated group
rats were selected that had developed tumors. On the basis of previous publications as well as from
data from Séralini’s study, we know that rats in control groups also develop tumors.

Conclusion

The two-year long rat study conducted by Séralini and his colleagues displays, from a scientific point
of view, considerable shortcomings. The most serious of these can be found in the fact that the study
used far too few rats per treated group and that there were too few control groups. In one fell swoop
this entirely removes the basis for the conclusions that Séralini et al. draw. In addition to this, for
every conclusion that they draw there is sufficient evidence in their own text to undermine them
completely. There are also other shortcomings and numerous other questions that remain
unanswered. One thing is clear: Séralini et al. have not been able to substantiate in any way
whether genetically modified NK603 maize or Roundup is harmful or not. The only thing that the
study confirms is that Sprague-Dawley rats, like many other laboratory rats, develop relatively
speaking many pathologies and that, as a consequence of this, many of the animals do not reach two
years of age. But we have known this since the 1960s.

[truedelphi]

2. If American companies really wanted to act like they beleived in science, they would

employ the International Scientific Protocols that every other industrialized nation uses to determine if a product, seed or crop is safe.

But the Big Corporations don't do that. Why should they? They know that as long as they can control the bought and paid for political officials, all will be well.

What tells us that the GM foods and seeds inside the USA are totally safe? Why the doctrine that Mike Taylor put together: when he stated that GM crops were as nutritionally as sound as conventional crops.

No decades of study, No years of study. No week and a half of study. Just a single proclamation.
In the age of the Holy Roman Catholic Church, that was what happened instead of real science. Now in the age of Holy American Corporations, we again have science by proclamation.
But it worked well for Bill Clinton, who had appointed Taylor. And Clinton went on to
get $ 100,000 per speech in front of corporate podium. And it worked out well for Mr Taylor who now heads a division at the FDA.

The only people it is not working out for are all the people popping Prilosec 24/7 who can't figure out why their tummies and digestive systems no longer work as well as their parents' generation of tummies and digestive systems worked.

[roseBudd]

7. You couldn't be more wrong. Perhaps you should research the issue...

excluding biased sources. Your arguments are not based on any research that shows tummies don't work like they used to.

http://www.skepticink.com/smilodonsretreat/2012/10/24/a-survey-of-long-term-gm-food-studies/

Assessment of the health impact of GM plant diets in long-term and multigenerational animal feeding trials: A literature review We examined 12 long-term studies (of more than 90 days, up to 2 years in duration) and 12 multigenerational studies (from 2 to 5 generations). We referenced the 90-day studies on GM feed for which long-term or multigenerational study data were available. Many parameters have been examined using biochemical analyses, histological examination of specific organs, hematology and the detection of transgenic DNA. The statistical findings and methods have been considered from each study. Results from all the 24 studies do not suggest any health hazards and, in general, there were no statistically significant differences within parameters observed. However, some small differences were observed, though these fell within the normal variation range of the considered parameter and thus had no biological or toxicological significance. If required, a 90-day feeding study performed in rodents, according to the OECD Test Guideline, is generally considered sufficient in order to evaluate the health effects of GM feed. The studies reviewed present evidence to show that GM plants are nutritionally equivalent to their non-GM counterparts and can be safely used in food and feed. - See more at: http://www.skepticink.com/smilodonsretreat/2012/10/24/a-survey-of-long-term-gm-food-studies/#sthash.eWMOlbwY.dpuf

Influence of scientific-technical literacy on consumers' behavioural intentions regarding new food.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23063609

A great deal of literature has studied cognitive and attitudinal factors conditioning consumers' acceptance of GM food, knowledge being one of the most inconsistent variables. Notwithstanding, some authors suggest closer attention should be paid to "science literacy", even more so than knowledge.

[carla]

16. You couldn't be more wrong. Perhaps you should research the issue...

follow your own advice and stop presenting nonsense. People oppose gmos on solid grounds, not because they perceive them incorrectly. You might start with the Seralini study and remove your corporate inspired blinders.

[roseBudd]

25. You might want to listen to scientists on Seralini

We have known since the 60s that Sprague-Dawley rats develop tumors no matter what they are fed, and even more so when allowed to feed ad libitum. Two year old Sprague-Dawley rats with tumors is the nnorm, when allowed to feed ad libitum, as Seralini did. Unless Seralini is a stupid man, he is a fraud.

You know so much about science how it it that you are unaware that 10 rats are an inadequate control group given the above.

The Effects of Diet, Overfeeding and Moderate Dietary Restriction on Sprague-Dawley Rat Survival, Disease and Toxicology

http://jn.nutrition.org/content/127/5/851S.full

The most common neoplastic cause of death in Sprague-Dawley rats are pituitary tumors in both sexes. Because pituitary tumors are prolactin secreting, mammary gland tumors in females are the second most common cause of death in Sprague-Dawley rats (Keenan et al. 1992, 1994a, 1994b and 1995b). Ad libitum–fed Sprague-Dawley rats of both sexes have an early development of hyperplastic, large pituitaries, higher DNA labeling indices and a high incidence of focal pituitary cell hyperplasias and adenomas compared with moderate DR groups when examined at 1-y intervals (Keenan et al. 1994a). These lesions lead to fatal tumors in the second year of life.

Our laboratory was surprised by the wide interlaboratory variability in the Sprague-Dawley rats daily food consumption, body weights and 2-y survival (Keenan et al. 1994a). Subsequently, we studied the effects of AL food consumption (overfeeding) and moderate DR that was within the range of AL food intake in other laboratories (Keenan et al. 1994a). Feeding Sprague-Dawley rats diets varying in protein, fiber and energy content did not improve 2-y Sprague-Dawley rat survival above 50% if AL access to food was allowed.

It is now clear that AL overfeeding of otherwise nutritious food is one of the most insidious, underestimated and significant factors increasing degenerative disease and tumors and decreasing survival in both humans and laboratory animals. Uncontrolled AL overfeeding of excessive energy needs to be recognized as one of the most important determinate errors in the current rodent bioassays that can compromise the usefulness of these risk-assessment studies.

Over the past two decades, rodent bioassays have shown a steady increase in study-to-study variability, decreases in survival, and increases in the incidence, onset time and severity of degenerative diseases and tumors in most of the rodent species, strains and stocks currently used (Hart et al. 1995a and 1995b, Keenan et al. 1992, 1994a and 1995a, Lang 1991, Roe et al. 1995, Weindruch and Walford 1988). These adverse changes have been associated with increases in rodent weights, which seem to be influenced by selection for more rapid growth and greater fecundity but are also greatly influenced by excessive food intake (Masoro 1995, Yu 1995). The uncontrolled variable of allowing rodents to consume excessive energy and the complicating effects of this procedure on the design, results and interpretation of toxicology and carcinogenicity studies continues to be largely neglected by many regulators, toxicologists and pathologists (Hart et al. 1995a and 1995b).

Many toxicology laboratories have observed a steady but variable decline in survival in 2-y rodent carcinogenicity studies over the past 20 y that correlates with increased food consumption and adult body weight. This decline has been observed in the outbred Wistar and Sprague-Dawley rat stocks and in the formally long-lived inbred Fischer-344 rat strain (Hart et al. 1995, Haseman and Rao 1992, Keenan et al. 1992 and 1994a, Rao et al. 1990, Roe et al. 1995). This decreased survival has caused some to question the adequacy of studies that have less than 50% of the animals treated with the test substance for the full 2-y period because of high mortality. Potential statistical problems arise from evaluating treatment-related mortality in studies with low control survival (Keenan et al. 1994a, Keenan and Soper 1995). The simplest solution to the potential loss of statistical power is to increase 2-y survival to 50% or more, because the sensitivity of the bioassay to distinguish a true treatment effect from concurrent controls is greatly increased (Keenan and Soper 1995).

To improve poor rodent survival it is necessary to recognize that the cause of these early deaths is the early development of spontaneous tumors and severe degenerative disease, such as chronic nephropathy and cardiomyopathy, that are secondary to dietary (energy) overfeeding (Keenan and Soper 1995, Keenan et al. 1992, Roe et al. 1995). Although genetic, nutritional and environmental interactions are involved, laboratory rodent survival can be significantly improved by simple energy intake restriction or dietary restriction (DR). This procedure will improve survival and thus increase exposure time to a test compound and improve the statistical sensitivity of these bioassays to detect a true treatment effect during the test period."

[GeorgeGist]

3. That's quite a word salad.

[Defectata]

4. there's a common fallacy in dealing with GMOs

genetically modifying food is a technology. it is a tool. just because the items that tool has produced are heretofore safe does not mean every one it will produce is. you can be cautious of GMOs and not be anti science.

I have a PhD in Analytical Chemistry. I am for labeling of GMOs. I am for forcing independent verification of each and every product the technology produces. That is not anti-science. I consider it prudent.

[roseBudd]

8. The well fed deciding for those who can barely afford food

There are severe consequences currently of Vitamin A deficiency. People have starved as a direct result of fear mongering by the well fed

There will be 9 billion people

There will be agricultural consequences of climate change

[Defectata]

14. while engineered foods can grow faster

do they actually contain equivalent nutrients?

I'd love to see a comparison.

[roseBudd]

22. Yes, except for Golden rice, Golden Banana, Golden Cassava

Last edited Wed Aug 28, 2013, 08:38 PM - Edit history (1)

engineered to provide 60% of the daily Vitamin A requirement, that blinds and kills so many where the staple crops that people in those countries have access to have none. Those staple crops are rice, banana, cassava.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Vitamin_A_deficiency.PNG

[fasttense]

5. So many half truths in this article.

The discovery of DDT was science and the discovery that it devastated bird populations was also science. Science is a tool, not a meme to be used to support a corporation.

Both DDT and tobacco brought billions in profit to greedy corporations. Science is not the problem here, it's how science is used by corporations that is the problem. What's the big deal about testing new products, even if they are created by using scientific methods. In fact, using the scientific method to test new products for problems before they sicken people and devastate the environment is well..scientific.

As a small farmer I can honestly say small low tech solutions are amazingly useful in everyday farming. You don't need an expensive American kitchen to get a garden going. Every culture, every person has some amount of trash and waste. Using that trash and waste to garden with is not limited to rich Americans. In many arid areas the simple solution of planting under a tree can work wonders.

The problem with white rice that the GMO rice was trying to cure is economic. Poor people eat a lot of white rice because it is very cheap and frequently one of the few staples subsidized by corrupt governments. Poor families do not have the money to buy a lot of other foods. They can't afford a varied diet to get the carotene they need. So the white rice is just fine if it is eaten with other foods. Richer families do not have problems with getting their balance of carotene. Not everyone who eats rice will suffer from vitamin deficiency. So the real problem here is poverty and corruption and not white rice. What about giving all that GMO research money to those poor people? It will do a lot more for a balanced diet than creating a GMO rice.

[roseBudd]

9. The arrogance of the well fed...

Last edited Wed Aug 28, 2013, 08:23 PM - Edit history (1)

I have a better idea. How about Green peace quits lying.

I want Omega 3 soybeans. Your fear mongering and non sequiturs should have no bearing on that availability. Nor should the Golden Banana, the Golden Cassava and Golden Rice be thwarted by baseless fear mongering.

If economic problems could be solved by the well fed insisting they were simply solvable, they would already have been solved.

Meanwhile children die

http://www.geneticliteracyproject.org/2013/08/27/prominent-scientists-and-journalists-in-agreement-golden-rice-research-should-continue/#.Uh3rg9JzFGM

[fasttense]

10. The arrogance of using RW talking points that are irrelevant

In no way have I promoted fear.

Is saying science is not a meme for corporations a fearful idea? Is saying using simple farming methods to be more productive fearful? Is saying vitamin deficiencies are caused by restricted diets scary? There is nothing "fearful" about what I wrote. But many a corporate propaganda monger uses the talking point that saying GMOs are bad is merely spreading false fear. You can tell it's a talking point and NOT a well thought out argument because it has nothing to do with the discussion and addresses none of the points clearly outline.

I merely used logic and common sense to show how the writer misled with half truths.

And then you go and write you want all this GMO crap. Well too bad. You have no right to buy dangerous products. It's not a god given right for you to have artificially designed and poorly tested products. Your right to eat crap does NOT out weigh the right of millions to eat healthy. But we all know what you really are defending. It's not GMO or science. It's corporate profits. You are upset because Monsanto or some other corporation is not going to make an extra billion off their crap.

And that comment that if a problem had a simple solution it would have been solved already. Really? You know there was a simple solution to the dust bowl. It was water. Very simple. And yet we had a devastating ecological tragedy anyway.

Actually economic problems can be solved by the well fed. It's called sharing. There another simple solution.

[carla]

17. rose Budd

thinks he speaks for the poor and hungry. I think he speaks for greed and disease and corporate rape.

[roseBudd]

26. I think you suffer from confirmation bias

A Decade of EU Funded GMO Research

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B7hhP5QasNtsX1AwV2YzNnlrZTA/edit?pli=1

[roseBudd]

19. Argumentum ad mosantum always degenerates to shill

because you have no evidence to support your claims.

"You have no right to buy dangerous products. It's not a god given right for you to have artificially designed and poorly tested products. Your right to eat crap does NOT out weigh the right of millions to eat healthy."

Your millions of organic food snobs aren't more important than the soon to be 9 billion. You can buy certified organic. No one gives a fuck how much you spend for your sense of superiority.

Your scientists are frauds, just like the climate change denier "scientists". Lying about death panels is wrong. So is lying about Golden Rice.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/08/26/golden_rice_attack_in_philippines_anti_gmo_activists_lie_about_protest_and.html

[fasttense]

29. NO evidence to support What Claims??

That a restrictive diet can lead to vitamin deficiencies? That Corporate Propaganda Mongers use RW talking points that are out of context? That you have no right to force GMO crap on everyone?

Do you really need evidence for what common sense tells you?

Climate change denier scientists take kick backs from oil corporations much like GMO lovers take kick backs from Monsanto.

If GMO seeds were being designed to feed people and help farmers I would be all in favor of them. But almost all GMO seeds have been designed to use in conjunction with poisonous pesticides and vegetation killers. They haven't designed a seed that can germinate with minimal water. They haven't designed a corn that can withstand 100 degree temperatures on a regular basis. No, the corporations have designed seeds that have to have poisonous chemicals that those corporations sell sprayed all over them. How is that going to feed billions?

I really have no problems with GMO seeds if they weren't in the hands of corporations whose only purpose is to make a profit at all cost. If GMOs were fully tested in long term studies and if products containing them were clearly identified, I'd say go ahead eat all the poisons you want. But as it stands now, I'm forced, conned and tricked into buying and eating GMOs because I don't know what has them and what doesn't. No one forces GMO lovers to eat organic. Why do you get your GMO crap at the expense of my ability to avoid the crap?

Seems to me if GMOs are so wonderful, corporations would be proudly selling and advertising them as GMOs, like organics are. Then people like you can eat all the crap you want. And people like me can eat what we want.

[HuckleB]

33. +1

[roseBudd]

24. It appears the well fed aren't up to the task of delivering.

Perhaps Fed Ex doesn't deliver carrots to Sub Saharan Africa

[fasttense]

30. Wow, you are desperate.

Now you have to break out medical porn to make your case. Let's breakout the pictures of children suffering from sever allergic reactions and accelerated aging due to GMOs. But like I said before I'm not into spreading fear.

Your medical porn photos reminds me of the images of fetuses that the RW uses to push their forced pregnancy laws on to women.

When reason and argument doesn't win the day, use emotions and horror.

[JoeyT]

11. Science and GMOs aren't the problem and never were.

It's the assholes we let control them that are the problem. "Let's find the greediest pack of jackals we can and give them just all of the power!" is pretty much a recipe for disaster no matter what you're doing. Even when it's science.

Especially since after a while it won't actually BE science any more. e.g. once you start throwing away evidence that could adversely effect profit margins.

[antues]

12. There will be 9 billion people

There will be 9 billion people

[Sentath]

13. The main problem with brown rice

Is that it spoils, and does so quite rapidly.

The fats in the germ and bran go rancid, generally as soon as 6 months. Even with the US's advanced distribution system unspoiled brown rice is not a guarantee* in the average middle American Mega-Mart. Exotic storage methods such as oxygen removal and near freezing temperatures can easily double that window, if not more. But, are probably outside the main focus of this discussion.



* I speak only from personal experience in KS and OK, ymmv.

http://www.aaccnet.org/publications/cc/backissues/1986/Documents/Chem63_247.pdf

http://www.stilltasty.com/fooditems/index/18184

http://www.eatbydate.com/grains/rice-shelf-life-expiration-date/

[roseBudd]

18. Brown rice is not the subject. golden Rice with beta carotene is

Field trials were destroyed in the Philippines because the well fed Green Peacers lie.

Beta carotene is not poison.

Vitamin A deficiency is real, and the well fed have had decades to solve it, and haven't.

[Sentath]

21. Beta-carotene rice is a so-so tech solution to an economic problem.

Ok, a little research and they have managed to upgrade it to a sufficient tech solution to an economic problem.

What a sad statement on the world it is that it is easier to rewrite the codes of life as we know it than to make it possible for the poorest to grow a few carrots.

And neither rice nor carrots addresses the need for a little bit of fat in the diet for the beta-carotene to be bioavailable.

[roseBudd]

23. What a sad statement that the well fed assume that grow a few carrots

is just so obvious, and the solution. And that all parts of the world, have the soil, rain fall, and land to grow enough carrots to not go blind or die. Because obviously they must just be too stupid to not realize what a simple solution the well fed fans of Big Organic have devised for them.

[Sentath]

27. Thank you for that assult

I'm much more a fan of small organic, big organic tends to be corporate.

It appears that this tragedy is a direct result of an insufficient diet. You are proposing that GMO rice is the best fix for this tragedy. Why is it the best fix?

[fasttense]

31. As if you are NOT Well Fed?

You get so high and mighty over your "well fed" comment. How well fed are You? How well fed are the corporate executives who force their GMO crap on us? How well fed are the GMO stock holders who make billions off of other's economic problems?

You would rather a corporation makes billions off of an economic problem by rearranging biological code then by actually addressing the real problem.

Keep posting your medical porn. Just like anti-women forced pregnancy advocates, you can only win by using emotion and fear.

[roseBudd]

32. I am well fed. Just not an asshole.

[Sentath]

28. This looks like a fairly balanced article on this project.

http://grist.org/food/golden-rice-fools-gold-or-golden-opportunity/